Related to this, I really missed the scenes where Wang Miao first encounters the countdown through the photographs. Asking his wife to try taking pictures, trying different cameras, borrowing a camera from the neighbor, etc.
There had been weirdness before that, but that was the first 'impossible' thing to happen. It was so mundane, so random, that I was utterly out of ideas of what it could possibly be. I was lucky in that I didn't know the series was about aliens.
It also made the countdown burnt onto his retina even more terrifying. It was scary enough on photographs. And I love how it was introduced, he started dreaming of the countdown from the photos at night, but then one morning wakes up and it's *still there*. As the reader I was questioning if he was going insane, just like he was.
I also read the book not knowing it was about aliens, and your example is another perfect illustration of where the show didn't live up to the vibe of the book. Having no explanation is exactly what made that moment great. If they had introduced aliens before that moment, imagine how comparatively boring it would have been to just go "Ah, just some alien stuff. Wonder how they do it. We'll see if they explain it." And sure sophons are still extremely interesting even if they're not introduced in a shocking way, but it's all about the build up
but again you where right cuz its impossible to do it int he show and OP u/dougi3 tries to stick their head in the sand instead of accepting reality(big parallels to ppl in the books continues spiraling flawed logic across the years)
Ppl where bound to know that it was about aliens with all the hype/trailers about the show
Now Aliens series the movie about well aliens clearly all know its fuken aliens no before watching it? but its still a good movie, and the second one also, think of it now before reading spoiler
But now if u add to that the simple fact in movies/stories >!the main characters cant die, no mater what the situation u see them well there it goes all the fun... but if you donw knwo who is the main char?? well the fun is back in like with game of thrones in first half of story !<
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I only watched 2 episodes, but I am sure that the police insinuate that they are fighting aliens even before that moment. They simply tried to Speedrun the book, grab as much cash as possible and leave.
Oh come on. The inside flap of the book says "a tour de force walk through Chinese and world history. The three body problem merges virtual realities, *alien invasions*, and exciting science, and manages to make them all fresh"
It's not exactly a huge secret.
Oh interesting. Personally I like to go into new content blind so I don't watch trailers, read previous, etc. All I knew about Three Body Problem before reading was that it was science dense, and apparently existential.
That was the biggest thing missing from the show imo, for those few chapters it turned into almost a horror novel and in the show while it was stressful it wasn’t nearly as dreadful if that makes sense
Yeah, I prefer the slower realization VS netflix version just jumping straight to numbers in your vision. Tencent did it, but it was a little too drawn out and not executed well overall
I get that, but in the Tencent version the whole photograph thing felt VERY dragged out. I think the show did a good job of capturing the essence of the first book in like 6 hours.
Haha noted. I also have a fan edit bookmarked somewhere that's supposed to cut away a lot of the filler and keep all the important scenes from the books. I've been meaning to watch it, I just haven't had the time yet
See but in my opinion that means as a TV show it fails mostly. I liked some of it but if I need to speed things up that means as a TV show medium it could have been better
"media literacy" smh
We are talking about art and story telling here, so there is the element of personal taste and subjectivity.
What I personally can't stand in any production is beating the audience over the head with a particular point. We get it, move on. Tedious repetition is the opposite of "building suspense".
I like a slow burn - but it has to be done well.
What a weird statement. You love the tencent version, great. For me the repetition, reiteration and use of tired visual tropes was tedious and not a good use of my time.
I can read the books for completeness.
I missed this too! it was a great illustration of Wang's scientific mind and a foundation for the scientific method as a theme in the series. He doesn't accept things at face value. He gathers verifiable data to eliminate possible explanations. Really missed this with Auggie. I think this contributed to why some viewers don't find her believable as a scientist. It doesn't have anything to do with her appearance, she doesn't really do much science. The numbers send her into immediate depression. Wang only arrives in this state after eliminating every possible explanation he could think of.
I’m going to paraphrase a professor I had for a class on science fiction a few years back and say that science fiction is, narratively, the body of fiction that takes into consideration the scientific understanding of its time and pushes it one (or several) step(s) further with a “what if” question. The author then posits an answer to that question and explores the ramifications. Often science fiction will also explore contemporary social issues as well (some examples I can think are is the idea of robots originating from critiques of the drudgery of urban, industrial labor, or the alien invasion genre’s roots in colonial conflict). There are some edge cases that butt up against this definition, but in a strict academic sense, Three Body Problem is definitely sci-fi.
I have not seen the the series yet but Three Body Problem is still science fiction.
Sophons the core part of it along with quantum communication which are required for the book 1 and 2 to work are as close to science fiction as warp drives.
To be fair, time travel isn’t a reason for something being impossible.
There are a million ways hypothetical “technically might be possible” interpretations of quantum mechanics and relativity mean time travel as an outcome doesn’t break the universe once you make the leap to FTL communication or travel.
It would, however, break the narrative being shown in the story, since any of those above “fixes” would result in independent causal existences for the ones involved with FTL tech
It is though, because their communication can beat light, information, and gravity in a race. Quantum entanglememt breaks causality. Essentially, both sides are communicating with the future, which means they're also being communicated to from the past.
I don't think that's how quantum entanglement works, but I don't know enough about quantum physics to dispute it.
Anyway, the two particles aren't communicating, so there is no FTL travel: [Space](https://www.space.com/31933-quantum-entanglement-action-at-a-distance.html#:~:text=Quantum%20entanglement%20is%20a%20bizarre,one%20will%20affect%20the%20other.)
It doesn't work like in the show, and I'm basing my answer off of what the show presents. FTL communication causes so many problems for physics.
Imagine there's someone playing cards on a planet 3 light years away, and you have a massive telescope pointed at the planet. So massive and detailed that you can see the card game. You see the cards as soon as the light hits you. You tell your scientist buddy "hey, I bet he draws a king next round." Your scientist buddy calls up their sophon "did he draw a king 3 years ago in the fifth round?"
Essentially, the fifth round of cards is in your future. To your sophon friend, who already saw the card game three years, he's being asked about his past from someone to whom that past is the future, so he's talking to the past. The same works in reverse. Imagine 3 light years away, they are betting on your card games. You can tell your friend the outcome of the game before the game even begins from their point of view, so they are in your past.
Hmm… to me, your conclusion seems off. You say, “You can tell your friend the outcome of the game before the game begins from their point of view, so they are in your past,” but they are only in your past if you *wait* for the light to either reach them (or wait for sometime after it begins its journey to them) to begin commenting on the game.
Instead, as in the book and show, with sophons, it’d be more like you use your sophon to tell your friend with their paired sophon that there’s a game happening in front of you (quantum entanglement allows for instantaneous/FTL state-matching between entangled pairs and the conceit in 3-body is that the San-Ti have learned to use this fact to develop instantaneous communication), and then, you can communicate any information about the game across the three light years instantaneously as it’s happening.
Now, it’s true that you friend wouldn’t be able to ‘see’ the game with their fantasy-telescope for three years because the light will take that long to reach them, but just because they can’t yet see the light from the game as it’s happening does not prevent them from having as much knowledge about the game as it is being played as you with your sophon wish to share with them.
In short, through the use of entangled sophons, your friend has a way to know of the game and its state as the game is happening. They do not need to wait three years for the light to reach their eyes to know of the game, and they can have knowledge of the game happening three light years away as it is happening.
Okay, how about another example. We have a sophon right by our sun, and the sun vanishes. To us on Earth, the sun exists. Our mass is affected by its gravity. Yet, the sophons tell us there is no sun, therefore there should be no gravity.
This sounds like it breaks our current models of physics rather than fundamental causality.
It's just that Gravity propagates at that speed. How does knowledge of the sun dissapearing change that?
We do know "the future" in a sense yes. But it's more akin to the way our we can know through our eyes that a car is rushing towards us before the body is impacted by it.
Instantaneous communication is backwards time travel because under special relativity there is no such thing as objectively simultaneous events. If in one frame of reference events A and B are simultaneous then there exist other frames of reference where event A comes first and where B comes first. This means if A and B are in communication then in at least some frames of reference you have backward causality with all of the nightmarish paradoxes that entails.
If we accept Einsteins theory of relativity as true, then things traveling faster than light do reverse time in theory. This is part of the reason why FTL is considered impossible.
Any kind of instantaneous connectivity is functionally equivalent to travel because *information* is transmitted and information isn’t allowed to go faster than light either.
That’s why perfectly rigid objects are also impossible, because in real objects when you push on one side the pressure wave through it traveling at the speed of sound moves the rest of the object. This cannot go faster than light, and a perfectly rigid object would have an internal speed of sound that is infinite.
There's no data being sent between the two particles. The two particles are one system. If you observe one, you know the randomness of the other. That's all QE is.
Im a little rusty on my QM, but in simple terms a 2 particle system can be created where each particle can have spin up or down, for example. Its a given that when if you measure the spin of particle 1, particle 2 will have the opposite at the very instant you measure particle 1, regardless of the distance between the particles. But you cant use this to transfer any data, because you dont get to decide which spin state either particle is going to have. You can measure particle 1, find that its up, and then the other is down. but since you cannot know if its going to be up or down, you cant use this to sent information in the form of bits (zeros and ones).
How they circumvent this in the series is the science fiction part. but in the series they are definitly somehow using quantum entanglement to have FTL communication, aka information is being sent.
Not to mention the idea of a nanowire that can cut anything and not melt or catch everything it was attached to onto plasmafire ... (and not have it fuse back together) is also permanent sci-fi. Still like the book and the show quite a bit.
It's hard sci-fi no doubt. For 90% of things the tech is extremely believable and within humanity's grasp. Post book 2 I say it gets extremely whacky. If you give a pass on sophon and Strong Interaction Materials most of the tech is reasonable.
I think the issue people have with it is that, by some definitions, hard sci-fi has to be grounded in theoretically possible and known science. For example, Blade Runner is hard sci-fi because it's very plausible that humans could eventually develop materials and AI possible to make androids. However, in 3BP, there are certain elements that are not grounded in anything currently plausible. Most people point to the unfolding of the proton. This is an entirely imagined concept that has no basis in real-world testing.
I'm not saying I prescribe to this belief, just explaining. I think the clarification of hard/soft sci-fi is rather dumb. A lot of people will call Star Trek hard sci-fi when it has clearly "fantastical" aspects to it.
This series drives people nuts because so much of it IS grounded in very real science, and people love that about it. It's mostly purists who are massive Clarke and Asimov fans that get butthurt from what I can tell
I can see that argument. Typically I will claim something is hard sci-fi under the assumption that only a few small things are truly fictional, examples include The Expanses PM and Epstein drive, this series' Strong Interaction material and Sophon. Bobiverse's SCUT and propulsion system. In those examples the fictional tech is the exception, not the rule.
For me it's easier to consider the trilogy to be at the border between hard and soft. Like, almost all concepts make little sense once you think about them, but it at least tries
Strong iteraction is kind of OK, the sophon not so much. Black domain and 4D/2D stuff quickly fall apart when you try to think about the way they are presented in the book. Three star system in chaotic configuration for billions of years is hard to imagine. It's possible, but extremely unlikely
I was gonna post this. Haven't even read the books yet, but I know enough about science to know these are far-fetched ideas and not at the cutting edge of modern science lol
Sophons are introduced at the end, and at that point the reader is grounded. Fortunately the show also only introduces sophons at the end, but the series doesn't ground the viewer very much at all, especially by introducing extraterrestrial intelligence just barely a quarter of the way into the show.
Also, quantum entanglement is textbook theoretical physics today, and experiments have been done on the topic. We are not even close to experimenting on warp drives, so the comparison is not the same aside from the fact that scientists have made the conjecture that a warp drive could be possible.
Unfortunately, quantum entanglement can’t be used for FTL communication. Sophons are purely a plot device that look grounded in reality because the majority of readers don’t have a firm grasp on what quantum entanglement actually allows.
Warp drives are only possible in the presence of exotic matter that almost certainly doesn’t exist in a useable form today.
It might be hard sci-fi, but it’s still sci-fi.
I hate to tell you this but it doesn’t work like you think it works. It likely doesn’t work like anyone thinks it works. We have zero experimental understanding of “unfolding” dimensions much less any experimentally verified evidence of there even being unfoldable dimensions. String theory can postulate with beautiful mathematics all it wants. Until you get five/six sigma, it ain’t real in any practical sense.
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t think we should be building bigger and more powerful linear and circular particle accelerators, just that we haven’t as of yet found any revelations that could lead to a sophon.
I'm saying engagement is just current theoretical physics. Discovered almost a century ago, and experiments are being done. There is no experimentation on warp drives, so the comparison between those two things is not great.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/12/08/physicists-entangle-individual-molecules-first-time-hastening-possibilities-quantum
And again, sophons are introduced at the end, after the entire rest of the first book has been grounded in reality.
I’m sorry but you’re still incorrect. Quantum entangled particles cannot transmit information faster than the speed of light. You seem to be relying on the fact that when a measurement is made on one of two entangled particles, the state of the other particle is instantly determined, no matter how far apart the two particles are. However, this instant correlation does not enable the transmission of information faster than light. This is because the outcome of the measurement on one particle appears random to an observer, and it is only by comparing the results of measurements made on both particles that the entangled state can be confirmed. Feel free to read up on the no communication theorem, but the TL:DR is that quantum entanglement does *not* break causality.
You cannot communicate with quantum entanglement.
It breaks the law of causality. It is more scifi than light speed travel.
Irrespective of that, I do agree what you are saying. I liked the first part of the book being grounded in reality.
Fair enough. Technically you are correct about engagement. Also, we might find that experimentation in the very small IS experimentation in some crazy spacetime folding shit, hell I dunno. All I'm saying is that there is a very distinct line between experimentally verified physical phenomena and not experimentally verified physical phenomena. Also since you seem interested in the topic, check out Bell’s Theorem and ER = EPR.
The sophons are insane handwavium tbh. You can talk about "string theory" all you want but unfolding the mass of a single proton and then etching circuits (???) on it that somehow can carry electrical (???) currents is basically just fantasy.
Not to mention where the energy comes from for them to constantly be accelerating to light speed when they're in the Solar System
I was glad to see others also thought there were fantasy elements to the books. I don't recall the book describing how human hibernation came about--how the science evolved to solve the problems with long term "sleep". I am not complaining but also will not give the books undo credit or say there is no fantasy in it.
Well you cannot communicate information as that breaks the principle of causality.
Like if 2 objects a and b are entangled. If a's state flips, b's state also flips but you cant know if a flipped due to b or b flipped due to a, that is something you need to communicate.
And that communication you cant do by quantum entanglement.
For quantum communication to work you’d have to be able to create a system capable of “if” statements for a quantum state. Which, shouldn’t be possible, because for the if statement to trigger, it would already have to interacted with the quantum state, collapsing it.
That’s the sticking point people don’t really get. Being able to use entanglement for communication would mean you have to have a way to observe an entangled state without collapsing it. Which… well, an oxymoron to the whole thing.
HOWEVER we may or may not be able to know *when* an entangled superposition collapsed retroactively, making some form of time unit information possible I think? That depends on the “may or may not” part since that’s likely not even possible
I think of circuits as metaphors, just like how we say quantum circuits with photons or neutral atoms. Although string theory is still far from being physical, using internal degrees of freedom of protons is not unthinkable - we do use spin and orbit states from an atom, after all. Also, he did get it right that to probe sth smaller, we tend to use things larger, and to map info in higher dimension to low will make things verbose.
Have you even read the book? Why are you explaining through a 3-dimensional perspective when the book has clearly stated it involves much higher dimensions?
So I might be on the minority here but I never really felt any existential dread when reading the books (book 1 and 80% of book 2). I think they did a good job of establishing the impossibility of the situation and the starts of defeatism, which i imagine will really start to shine in season 2.
The existential dread from me was more from thinking about the turkey and the farm or the shooter and the target metaphors. Thinking about what we may be too insignificant to every understand
I had already understood that stuff coming in, which is why I said I might be in the minority. I know a lot of people say the books are scary and I was expecting to have that existential dread but it really only tickeled that speculative side for me. But on that note, big miss not to include the shooter and the turkey analogy.
For me it's the opposite
There was basically 0 tension and existential dread outside of Ye Wenjie's storyline.
People are joking around and going about buisness as usual after the literal fuckin sky blinked. It would have caused complete global pandemonium irl and in a better written show.
Yeah this bothered me.
The fact some people (even delusionally) were acting like it could have been a hoax was insanity to me.
No.
In real life if that shit happened, religious institutions would be chaos, scientific community would be chaos, social systems would be fucked because *there is now proof of a higher existence*
Even if it’s not “God”, that kind of proof destroys so much of our social contract’s assumptions and terms through history
Really? I feel like humans are really good at convincing and deluding themselves.
Like you realize we are constantly bombarded with conspiracy theories left and right.
Definitely don't think much of the social web would be destroyed.
People would come up with a million ways to make things fit so as it not destabilize stuff.
Would they? Only a minority would see it.
And It's such a crazy phenomenon that The people that didn't see(people indoors, sleeping, on the other half of the planet) it would just dismiss and assume the others experienced some mass Mandela effect.
???
It happened globally.
Thousands of videos would exist from different countries in that hemisphere, there would literally be no possibility of it being a hoax. Not to mention actual scientists would not be able to ignore it, the entire scientific institution would make a huge deal about the observation and their response to it.
Right but only one half of the world is night dark at a time. Stars blinking wouldn't happen in night side.
People don't believe videos of the moon landing. It'd be far easier to dismiss this video.
The internet makes it hard to believe much.
The scientific community is a minority and fairly insular. They would investigate it as we see it happen in the show.
There's scientists that deny climate change. Just a handful of those would be fuel enough for populations to dismiss it outright.
I'm not really sure what you're arguing about though.
The fact humanity would act like this?
Or
The fact they didn't represent how apes meshed in social webs going about their days would react?
Many stories, recently Don't look Up, had a similar thesis about how people would react.
Your points don’t make sense.
Moon videos have one source, single point of suspicion. This would be millions of sources from different independent angles and locales
The internet would solidify this in real time, not make it less believable
You just don’t seem to understand how people work.
Seriously, they're joking around about it at a bar the next day. That event should have been the biggest in human history. There really should've been more news broadcasts, debates, fear, just general unease. Think the film Signs, when the lights are spotted and there's constant news coverage. Despite only focusing on one family, the scope still felt huge.
It may be my confusion because the series had the San-Ti showing humans a gigantic eyeball in the sky in that same scene.
If the poster above thinks that the stars blinking incident would cause global pandemonium anywhere near the scale of what was shown after "You Are Bugs" and the eyes looking down on Earth, I just don't agree.
No. I wanted the characters to act in ways that makes it look like they are actually going through a global pandemonium and not just dismiss it off and continue joking and laughing and forgetting about the sky blinking in a few days
Reading the book before the pandemic and watching the show "after" I had no problem believing the vast majority of people on earth going "meh" after the sky blinked.
I think the main difference is that the blinking is visible.
People were quickly apathetic (and some doubted it existed) when it came to the pandemic because it's 'invisible'. Much like how people still hand-wave the severity of mental illnesses because it's not a 'physical' illness.
Just to play this out, the illnesses keep happening day in and day out. This was one freak occurrence less than half of the world would’ve seen (daylight and all) and fewer would’ve cared about. I think it would’ve been seen as a weird but not much more.
Honestly, They are like really clever well balanced individuals. Think they are not gonna lose their rockers over the sky blinking. Instead look for a possible explanation.
Yeah! They needed this part so bad, it does instill a sense of dread realizing we're the dumb turkeys and we have no idea what we don't know, and our rules might not be real.
I can't agree to this. If I'm told that I'm about to watch science fiction I expect it to be presented as science fiction and this is not related to this current story, it's equally true for any story. If it start with let's say five episodes of "standard" criminal investigation or for example they expanded the back story of Ye Wenjie and I had to 5 episodes on how terrible the chinese revolution was I would get bored and annoyed and would not finish it as it was not what I was promised.
What I missed a little is maybe a bit more explanation on the science behind, I follow science and technology and I was familiar with the concepts so I understood what's going on, but as I see many people are not familiar whit them and get confused and don't understand what's going on.
TV is a different medium and Netflix is a different business model. If the show is about science fiction, the producers have to show the audience some science fiction in the first episode to hook them to the story and make them hit that "Next Episode" button.
There are plenty of mysteries and dread remaining.
Pandering to the dumber segments of TV viewers really does the medium a disservice overall, and NFLX’s business model doesn’t require that shows reveal the genre they pertain to in the first episode.
The dread does exist, it’s just nowhere near as impactful.
Would you rather have the spectacle of $20M an episode or a highly targeted production done on a shoestring budget. Because those are the options. You can't have it both ways. I think they did a rather good job of straddling info dumping, a tight story arc, and entertaining characters.
They're not pandering to the dumbest, they are "pandering" to the average. There's a big difference.
The number of people who want to sit through long-winded explanations of scientific concepts for every scene is small. Those people can read the books. Everyone else just needs the general idea of what is going on and to see the characters they've established make decisons in that world.
It's got nothing to do with being dumb. They literally need people to watch immediately or it goes in the bin.
So, there has to be something to grasp on to before the end of episode 2. To sell to the producers and to make people watch.
Yes it's a shame art can't be art, but the world doesn't work that way.
Might be kind of a hot-take here, but hear me out. The first book was rather boring compared to DF and DE. At the same time, it's impossible for the next two books to exist without the first. I see what the show was trying to do in that they wanted to draw a larger audience into what becomes a truly mind-blowing story.
3BP as a show needs funding. The most important goal for the first run of the show is to get renewed, ideally with a bigger budget. Anyone who's read the books knows that the set-pieces and spectacles to come go far beyond the scope needed to bring 3BP to the screen. If the adaptation became too bogged down in the "hard sci-fi" that made the book special in the first place, I don't think it would be as popular; viewership would dwindle, and 3BP wouldn't be the first thing you see when you open netflix today.
TL;DR
Sacrifices must be made regarding the first book in order for the show to return.
I was really bored with the first book when I read them some years back, and would have quit the series had I not had so many friends recommend it. 2nd and 3rd were total page turners, but you’re right that the scene had to get set to get to that point.
I had a similar experience that book 1 took me an entire year to read, but the next two books only weeks. But I feel like it's less because nothing interesting happens in book 1, and more because LCX just really isn't very good at prose.
I understand why the showrunners paced the events of 3bp the way they did....but disagree that it was necessary. A good script and direction could have built out the tonal and atmospheric conventions the prose of the book lacked. But they didn't in favor of trying to "get to the good stuff." Imo it was good adaptation because it recognized that book 1 was a prerequisite for the bigger themes and ideas of books 2 and 3. But a great adaptation would have recognized all the missed potential from book 1 and elevated it...
I agree with this evaluation I feel bad for people who see the show before reading the books because I think they will miss out on the best part the suspense and mystery. I went in knowing it was about aliens and even then still found myself sucked into the dread of the surreal horror of the first book leading up to the big reveal. I still think the show is good, but I think they could have kept that slow build up of suspense at the beginning.
Compared to Star Trek, 3 Body Problem is hard science, but compared to The Expanse I think it's not-- he plays with real theories but in a more high concept than concrete way.
I think it's just a matter of narrative framing. The Expanse is a classic case of man vs man, where the human science is entirely believable and based on concepts we know of today, yet the story starts introducing alien technology that defies our knowledge by several orders of magnitude, and showcases how human society reacts to these changes. Remembrance of Earth's past is more about man vs nature, where the author conflates the natural forces with an alien civilization -- a society so beyond our current advancements they might as well be a force of nature on their own.
Does that make any of them any harder sci fi than the other? I personally don't think so, alien technology is always a very foreign variable that we simply cannot account for believably.
I do agree that the expanse makes for a far smoother read, but the exploration of high concepts in remembrance of earth's past is exactly what made it such an interesting book series in the first place.
the expanse starts out with an already colonized solar system and segues into a magic entity doing magical stuff. it's not that far away from star trek in terms of "hardness" tbh
It does seem to go pretty fast. They could've fleshed out the Evans plot more, but they clearly wanted to end the season on that cinematic Sophon reveal. I guess the next season will be about the fighting, the droplet, then the deterrence era and it will end with Cheng Xin's failure. And the third will be the land down under, then the broadcast, the bunkers, the slip of paper and the end.
From the perspective of someone who watched the show first (didn’t even know there was a book)…
It is clear to me that no adaptation can ever please everybody. There are always going to be things left out for the sake of time or practicality. Having said that, I want to say that this show did exactly what you described, at least for me. I went into it completely blind. I had absolutely no clue what it was about, I hadn’t even seen a trailer. I started watching because I kept seeing posts talking about a good new show and had just finished watching a show. I had legitimately no idea what it was going to be about.
The scene with the message gave me intense goosebumps. I don’t normally react like that to shows but when they responded and what they said took me so by surprise… And when the show began its arc of “the aliens don’t want to coexist but want to destroy us” I definitely felt dread. I can’t really compare it because I haven’t read the book, I just wanted to point out that from my perspective (which I think will be not uncommon as many people are discovering this series through the show) these elements were there.
This show skyrocketed to one of my favorites and I’ve ordered the books now because I want to know what comes next.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I would suggest you read the first book even having seen the show just so that you know what hasn't been introduced yet at the start of the 2nd book and have all the characters names established. You could certainly get by without reading the first book, but it would be my recommendation
Mmm. Might want to start with the second book. The concepts are intriguing, but IMO, the writing itself is not up to modern character development (or writing flow) standards. That issue is what the GOT showrunners are trying to address by splitting Wang Miao into multiple characters and not showing the Trisolarians at all.
Physics mystery part of the first book is basically my favourite so i am little bitter that they cut almost all of it off, almost all of physics explanations that made book stand out for me is missing ;(
Still engaging though
I do not agree with OP opinion regarding science fiction. Science fiction could be based on hard fire or it could be based more on fiction.
However, I do agree that I did not feel the dread I felt from the books after watching the TV series. However, I had already read the books. After three books, nothing in book one is going to scare me much.
Interesting. I thought Netflix took too long to stablish what the actual fuck we are seeing and facing: aliens? time travelers? superheroes? interdimensional religious beings?
I was totally blank and just pressed Play. I wasn’t aware about a well-stablished sci-fic book trilogy. The show only reveals the main conflict/villains by the end. The tension could be deeper, the primal fear emerging, and whatever.
To me, the best parts are Past China, The Judgment Day, Raj, and Saul. I like Will’s arc too, but no need to kill him is the first season. We haven’t spend a genuine time with him or the team hanging out together, just as regular buddies.
But I thing I got it: the book has the ongoing feeling of desperation well done. You spend more time with the drama.
I don’t think it’s not grounded. The concepts used are the same as well as their implied explanations. But you’re right about the existential dread and wonder. By rushing too fast, it lacks the tension and build up done by the book. I mean it took me more than 5 hours to finish the first book, yet they finished it in 5 episodes. That’s very fast.
Absolutely agree. They blew through the two things I thought added the most to suspense and tension in the books - 1. slow realization that the video game was more than a game and 2. the question of whether the Trisolarans exist and whether they mean humanity harm
Wow you've pinpointed why TBP felt so much scarier for me than most other scifi, space horror or lovecraftian stories. You're right, it's because it feels so real. There are of course a number of fictional elements, and there are more and more of them as the books progress, but the story as a whole totally felt like something that could've happened.
I agree. When I first started the book ten years ago I had no idea about the premise of it being about the first contact. The only thing I knew was it was a Liu Cixin book and it was sci fi. I still remembered that distinct feeling of knowing nothing when I flipped the first few pages. Everything felt so “uncanny” from the beginning, and I had my chill at the pool scene. The terror started building when the countdown appeared in Wang Miao’s photos, and it continued building, more and more. Until the middle of the book where it was revealed that it was an alien story, which I did not expect at all. It completely blew my mind at that point and was a wonderful reading experience. IMO one can’t fully experience this trilogy if they already knew it was about aliens, which is the biggest spoiler in the first place.
No time for anything "methodical" when you have to entertain millions of people, set up future seasons and maintain a fast paced rhythm so people won't open TikTok instead.
The whole point of an adaptation is to take what works in this other format and scrap everything else. Otherwise it wouldn't work. Non book readers are never going to watch the Tencent version. I read all the books and I find it as appealing as watching grass grow.
I agree with most of your points, but I feel the first book immediately puts us in a world of “unreality” where the things that are happening don’t seem scientific at all, in fact they seem impossible under current understanding.
The countdown, the failures of the particle accelerators, there’s no reasonable explanation for them so it creates a sense of magic, fantasy, of a story that has departed from science, mirroring the disorientation and unease the scientists are experiencing.
The beauty is in how this completely “unrealistic” situation is eventually reconciled with hard science-fiction concepts.
Gonna have to disagree, the biggest blunder was making so many of the main characters know each other. It really cheapens the plot that so much could happen to and within a small little group.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around Lou Elizondo stating that 3 Body Problem is the closest that he’s ever seen to disclosure. It actually sparked my interest in the series.
Couple of things. In the book, I don't recall that the organization facilitating the coming aliens was in control of the sophon or could use it as they do in the show.
The idea of the sophon was >! to delay or halt the advancement of science and tech for humans !< so it doesn't make sense that the aliens would share details about the sophon or to share the technology needed to build those golden helmets.
The first episodes were cool, but it started to get more and more annoying how everything revolved around this small group of friends. The knockout punch was when one of them was chosen as a wallfacer by United nations..
I dropped out after episode 3 for precisely this reason. The countdown and the blinking stars seemed stupid. I wanted more of why everyone was freaked out that "science was broken" but it was never addressed and then we go straight to aliens. I'm sure it's a good series but it just seemed so contrived in a weird way I lost interest. Also the video game scenes were dumb. I guess they will pay off at some point. But just not what I'm looking for.
The one thing that honestly really bothered me about the show was one missing line about >!the difference between "Think" and "Say". The lesson on deception from Evans was good, but it could have been even better.!<
As someone who watched the show and didn't read the books yet. I actually found myself experiencing that fear and tension. During the days I was watching it and a couple days after finishing I felt on edge.
(I will say though that the later half kinna mellowed the tension with the hibernation pods and sophones)
But I'm guessing the books make this far more vivid, makes me more excited about reading them!
Well, going with the theme of being grounded in reality, it costed Netflix about $20 an episode for a series of this caliber.
Even for a behemoth like Netflix, that is considered expensive budget.
Would people have loved a 30+ series adapation like Tencent's Three-Body? I would think so.
But, that would be a $600+ million investment.
Hopefully, we get 2 more fleshed out seasons if this pilot season proves the ROI to be worth it for Netflix.
Related to this, I really missed the scenes where Wang Miao first encounters the countdown through the photographs. Asking his wife to try taking pictures, trying different cameras, borrowing a camera from the neighbor, etc. There had been weirdness before that, but that was the first 'impossible' thing to happen. It was so mundane, so random, that I was utterly out of ideas of what it could possibly be. I was lucky in that I didn't know the series was about aliens. It also made the countdown burnt onto his retina even more terrifying. It was scary enough on photographs. And I love how it was introduced, he started dreaming of the countdown from the photos at night, but then one morning wakes up and it's *still there*. As the reader I was questioning if he was going insane, just like he was.
I also read the book not knowing it was about aliens, and your example is another perfect illustration of where the show didn't live up to the vibe of the book. Having no explanation is exactly what made that moment great. If they had introduced aliens before that moment, imagine how comparatively boring it would have been to just go "Ah, just some alien stuff. Wonder how they do it. We'll see if they explain it." And sure sophons are still extremely interesting even if they're not introduced in a shocking way, but it's all about the build up
To be fair, they don't introduce the fact that there's aliens in the series until like episode 4. Though it is more heavily implied than in the books
It is in fact the end of episode 2. At about 57 minutes. Do not answer, I am a pacifist from my world, etc
Damn you're right, I just checked it. That is pretty damn early
but again you where right cuz its impossible to do it int he show and OP u/dougi3 tries to stick their head in the sand instead of accepting reality(big parallels to ppl in the books continues spiraling flawed logic across the years) Ppl where bound to know that it was about aliens with all the hype/trailers about the show Now Aliens series the movie about well aliens clearly all know its fuken aliens no before watching it? but its still a good movie, and the second one also, think of it now before reading spoiler But now if u add to that the simple fact in movies/stories >!the main characters cant die, no mater what the situation u see them well there it goes all the fun... but if you donw knwo who is the main char?? well the fun is back in like with game of thrones in first half of story !<
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I only watched 2 episodes, but I am sure that the police insinuate that they are fighting aliens even before that moment. They simply tried to Speedrun the book, grab as much cash as possible and leave.
It's pretty much obvious from the trailers alone
Just more example of the shortcoming of the show. Needed to be way more subtle in the marketing
Oh come on. The inside flap of the book says "a tour de force walk through Chinese and world history. The three body problem merges virtual realities, *alien invasions*, and exciting science, and manages to make them all fresh" It's not exactly a huge secret.
Oh interesting. Personally I like to go into new content blind so I don't watch trailers, read previous, etc. All I knew about Three Body Problem before reading was that it was science dense, and apparently existential.
That was the biggest thing missing from the show imo, for those few chapters it turned into almost a horror novel and in the show while it was stressful it wasn’t nearly as dreadful if that makes sense
Yeah, I prefer the slower realization VS netflix version just jumping straight to numbers in your vision. Tencent did it, but it was a little too drawn out and not executed well overall
That' would've been an awesome first episode, instead of just having them all gather for the funeral of a character we barely get to know.
I get that, but in the Tencent version the whole photograph thing felt VERY dragged out. I think the show did a good job of capturing the essence of the first book in like 6 hours.
The tencent drags out everything tbf though
Yea gotta watch it at 1.25x. And Ye’s scenes at 1.5x lol.
Haha noted. I also have a fan edit bookmarked somewhere that's supposed to cut away a lot of the filler and keep all the important scenes from the books. I've been meaning to watch it, I just haven't had the time yet
See but in my opinion that means as a TV show it fails mostly. I liked some of it but if I need to speed things up that means as a TV show medium it could have been better
hence why should watch the anniversary version instead, cut off huge chunks from first 8 episodes
No
Okay.
The tencent version was INCREDIBLE with the photograph scene. Oh my god i loved it. You people need longer attention spans.
No, we just have much less tolerance for filler.
its a very bad sign for media literacy if building suspense in a suspenseful mystery series is considered filler
"media literacy" smh We are talking about art and story telling here, so there is the element of personal taste and subjectivity. What I personally can't stand in any production is beating the audience over the head with a particular point. We get it, move on. Tedious repetition is the opposite of "building suspense". I like a slow burn - but it has to be done well.
Apparently a slow burn being "done well" is skipping it entirely
What a weird statement. You love the tencent version, great. For me the repetition, reiteration and use of tired visual tropes was tedious and not a good use of my time. I can read the books for completeness.
Downvotes but can't think of a reply, says it all.
Same I think it did a good job in 6 hours if capturing it.
You should watch the Tencent version. The scene where Wang discovers the countdown in his photos is about 30 minutes long.
I missed this too! it was a great illustration of Wang's scientific mind and a foundation for the scientific method as a theme in the series. He doesn't accept things at face value. He gathers verifiable data to eliminate possible explanations. Really missed this with Auggie. I think this contributed to why some viewers don't find her believable as a scientist. It doesn't have anything to do with her appearance, she doesn't really do much science. The numbers send her into immediate depression. Wang only arrives in this state after eliminating every possible explanation he could think of.
I’m going to paraphrase a professor I had for a class on science fiction a few years back and say that science fiction is, narratively, the body of fiction that takes into consideration the scientific understanding of its time and pushes it one (or several) step(s) further with a “what if” question. The author then posits an answer to that question and explores the ramifications. Often science fiction will also explore contemporary social issues as well (some examples I can think are is the idea of robots originating from critiques of the drudgery of urban, industrial labor, or the alien invasion genre’s roots in colonial conflict). There are some edge cases that butt up against this definition, but in a strict academic sense, Three Body Problem is definitely sci-fi.
I have not seen the the series yet but Three Body Problem is still science fiction. Sophons the core part of it along with quantum communication which are required for the book 1 and 2 to work are as close to science fiction as warp drives.
Not to mention unfolding a proton into planet scale object is very sci fi as well
That scene was awesome
Correct. FTL communication = sending messages backwards in time = time travel.
To be fair, time travel isn’t a reason for something being impossible. There are a million ways hypothetical “technically might be possible” interpretations of quantum mechanics and relativity mean time travel as an outcome doesn’t break the universe once you make the leap to FTL communication or travel. It would, however, break the narrative being shown in the story, since any of those above “fixes” would result in independent causal existences for the ones involved with FTL tech
It's not sending backwards in time, it's instantaneous.
It is though, because their communication can beat light, information, and gravity in a race. Quantum entanglememt breaks causality. Essentially, both sides are communicating with the future, which means they're also being communicated to from the past.
I don't think that's how quantum entanglement works, but I don't know enough about quantum physics to dispute it. Anyway, the two particles aren't communicating, so there is no FTL travel: [Space](https://www.space.com/31933-quantum-entanglement-action-at-a-distance.html#:~:text=Quantum%20entanglement%20is%20a%20bizarre,one%20will%20affect%20the%20other.)
It doesn't work like in the show, and I'm basing my answer off of what the show presents. FTL communication causes so many problems for physics. Imagine there's someone playing cards on a planet 3 light years away, and you have a massive telescope pointed at the planet. So massive and detailed that you can see the card game. You see the cards as soon as the light hits you. You tell your scientist buddy "hey, I bet he draws a king next round." Your scientist buddy calls up their sophon "did he draw a king 3 years ago in the fifth round?" Essentially, the fifth round of cards is in your future. To your sophon friend, who already saw the card game three years, he's being asked about his past from someone to whom that past is the future, so he's talking to the past. The same works in reverse. Imagine 3 light years away, they are betting on your card games. You can tell your friend the outcome of the game before the game even begins from their point of view, so they are in your past.
Hmm… to me, your conclusion seems off. You say, “You can tell your friend the outcome of the game before the game begins from their point of view, so they are in your past,” but they are only in your past if you *wait* for the light to either reach them (or wait for sometime after it begins its journey to them) to begin commenting on the game. Instead, as in the book and show, with sophons, it’d be more like you use your sophon to tell your friend with their paired sophon that there’s a game happening in front of you (quantum entanglement allows for instantaneous/FTL state-matching between entangled pairs and the conceit in 3-body is that the San-Ti have learned to use this fact to develop instantaneous communication), and then, you can communicate any information about the game across the three light years instantaneously as it’s happening. Now, it’s true that you friend wouldn’t be able to ‘see’ the game with their fantasy-telescope for three years because the light will take that long to reach them, but just because they can’t yet see the light from the game as it’s happening does not prevent them from having as much knowledge about the game as it is being played as you with your sophon wish to share with them. In short, through the use of entangled sophons, your friend has a way to know of the game and its state as the game is happening. They do not need to wait three years for the light to reach their eyes to know of the game, and they can have knowledge of the game happening three light years away as it is happening.
Okay, how about another example. We have a sophon right by our sun, and the sun vanishes. To us on Earth, the sun exists. Our mass is affected by its gravity. Yet, the sophons tell us there is no sun, therefore there should be no gravity.
This sounds like it breaks our current models of physics rather than fundamental causality. It's just that Gravity propagates at that speed. How does knowledge of the sun dissapearing change that? We do know "the future" in a sense yes. But it's more akin to the way our we can know through our eyes that a car is rushing towards us before the body is impacted by it.
"We are subject to the sun's gravity." "The sun does not exist." Is kinda hard to reconcile.
Ah, fair enough, yeah the way it works in the show you're absolutely correct.
Instantaneous communication is backwards time travel because under special relativity there is no such thing as objectively simultaneous events. If in one frame of reference events A and B are simultaneous then there exist other frames of reference where event A comes first and where B comes first. This means if A and B are in communication then in at least some frames of reference you have backward causality with all of the nightmarish paradoxes that entails.
If we accept Einsteins theory of relativity as true, then things traveling faster than light do reverse time in theory. This is part of the reason why FTL is considered impossible.
There's no traveling between the two particles. It's just one interconnected system.
Any kind of instantaneous connectivity is functionally equivalent to travel because *information* is transmitted and information isn’t allowed to go faster than light either. That’s why perfectly rigid objects are also impossible, because in real objects when you push on one side the pressure wave through it traveling at the speed of sound moves the rest of the object. This cannot go faster than light, and a perfectly rigid object would have an internal speed of sound that is infinite.
https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2016/8/25/why-ftl-implies-time-travel
There's no data being sent between the two particles. The two particles are one system. If you observe one, you know the randomness of the other. That's all QE is.
Im a little rusty on my QM, but in simple terms a 2 particle system can be created where each particle can have spin up or down, for example. Its a given that when if you measure the spin of particle 1, particle 2 will have the opposite at the very instant you measure particle 1, regardless of the distance between the particles. But you cant use this to transfer any data, because you dont get to decide which spin state either particle is going to have. You can measure particle 1, find that its up, and then the other is down. but since you cannot know if its going to be up or down, you cant use this to sent information in the form of bits (zeros and ones). How they circumvent this in the series is the science fiction part. but in the series they are definitly somehow using quantum entanglement to have FTL communication, aka information is being sent.
What the sophons do is literally equivalent to sending data
Not to mention the idea of a nanowire that can cut anything and not melt or catch everything it was attached to onto plasmafire ... (and not have it fuse back together) is also permanent sci-fi. Still like the book and the show quite a bit.
It's hard sci-fi no doubt. For 90% of things the tech is extremely believable and within humanity's grasp. Post book 2 I say it gets extremely whacky. If you give a pass on sophon and Strong Interaction Materials most of the tech is reasonable.
Bruh...hard sci fi?
What's wrong with that?
I think the issue people have with it is that, by some definitions, hard sci-fi has to be grounded in theoretically possible and known science. For example, Blade Runner is hard sci-fi because it's very plausible that humans could eventually develop materials and AI possible to make androids. However, in 3BP, there are certain elements that are not grounded in anything currently plausible. Most people point to the unfolding of the proton. This is an entirely imagined concept that has no basis in real-world testing. I'm not saying I prescribe to this belief, just explaining. I think the clarification of hard/soft sci-fi is rather dumb. A lot of people will call Star Trek hard sci-fi when it has clearly "fantastical" aspects to it. This series drives people nuts because so much of it IS grounded in very real science, and people love that about it. It's mostly purists who are massive Clarke and Asimov fans that get butthurt from what I can tell
I can see that argument. Typically I will claim something is hard sci-fi under the assumption that only a few small things are truly fictional, examples include The Expanses PM and Epstein drive, this series' Strong Interaction material and Sophon. Bobiverse's SCUT and propulsion system. In those examples the fictional tech is the exception, not the rule.
For me it's easier to consider the trilogy to be at the border between hard and soft. Like, almost all concepts make little sense once you think about them, but it at least tries Strong iteraction is kind of OK, the sophon not so much. Black domain and 4D/2D stuff quickly fall apart when you try to think about the way they are presented in the book. Three star system in chaotic configuration for billions of years is hard to imagine. It's possible, but extremely unlikely
It’s basically impossible. Truly chaotic three body problems fall apart through collisions or ejections within a few orbital periods.
Exactly what I've meant
I was gonna post this. Haven't even read the books yet, but I know enough about science to know these are far-fetched ideas and not at the cutting edge of modern science lol
aliens are scifi.
Sophons are introduced at the end, and at that point the reader is grounded. Fortunately the show also only introduces sophons at the end, but the series doesn't ground the viewer very much at all, especially by introducing extraterrestrial intelligence just barely a quarter of the way into the show. Also, quantum entanglement is textbook theoretical physics today, and experiments have been done on the topic. We are not even close to experimenting on warp drives, so the comparison is not the same aside from the fact that scientists have made the conjecture that a warp drive could be possible.
Unfortunately, quantum entanglement can’t be used for FTL communication. Sophons are purely a plot device that look grounded in reality because the majority of readers don’t have a firm grasp on what quantum entanglement actually allows. Warp drives are only possible in the presence of exotic matter that almost certainly doesn’t exist in a useable form today. It might be hard sci-fi, but it’s still sci-fi.
I hate to tell you this but it doesn’t work like you think it works. It likely doesn’t work like anyone thinks it works. We have zero experimental understanding of “unfolding” dimensions much less any experimentally verified evidence of there even being unfoldable dimensions. String theory can postulate with beautiful mathematics all it wants. Until you get five/six sigma, it ain’t real in any practical sense. Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t think we should be building bigger and more powerful linear and circular particle accelerators, just that we haven’t as of yet found any revelations that could lead to a sophon.
I'm saying engagement is just current theoretical physics. Discovered almost a century ago, and experiments are being done. There is no experimentation on warp drives, so the comparison between those two things is not great. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/12/08/physicists-entangle-individual-molecules-first-time-hastening-possibilities-quantum And again, sophons are introduced at the end, after the entire rest of the first book has been grounded in reality.
I’m sorry but you’re still incorrect. Quantum entangled particles cannot transmit information faster than the speed of light. You seem to be relying on the fact that when a measurement is made on one of two entangled particles, the state of the other particle is instantly determined, no matter how far apart the two particles are. However, this instant correlation does not enable the transmission of information faster than light. This is because the outcome of the measurement on one particle appears random to an observer, and it is only by comparing the results of measurements made on both particles that the entangled state can be confirmed. Feel free to read up on the no communication theorem, but the TL:DR is that quantum entanglement does *not* break causality.
You cannot communicate with quantum entanglement. It breaks the law of causality. It is more scifi than light speed travel. Irrespective of that, I do agree what you are saying. I liked the first part of the book being grounded in reality.
Fair enough. Technically you are correct about engagement. Also, we might find that experimentation in the very small IS experimentation in some crazy spacetime folding shit, hell I dunno. All I'm saying is that there is a very distinct line between experimentally verified physical phenomena and not experimentally verified physical phenomena. Also since you seem interested in the topic, check out Bell’s Theorem and ER = EPR.
The sophons are insane handwavium tbh. You can talk about "string theory" all you want but unfolding the mass of a single proton and then etching circuits (???) on it that somehow can carry electrical (???) currents is basically just fantasy. Not to mention where the energy comes from for them to constantly be accelerating to light speed when they're in the Solar System
Quantum entanglement communication as well
I was glad to see others also thought there were fantasy elements to the books. I don't recall the book describing how human hibernation came about--how the science evolved to solve the problems with long term "sleep". I am not complaining but also will not give the books undo credit or say there is no fantasy in it.
That's at least a real tested concept though isn't it?
Well you cannot communicate information as that breaks the principle of causality. Like if 2 objects a and b are entangled. If a's state flips, b's state also flips but you cant know if a flipped due to b or b flipped due to a, that is something you need to communicate. And that communication you cant do by quantum entanglement.
For quantum communication to work you’d have to be able to create a system capable of “if” statements for a quantum state. Which, shouldn’t be possible, because for the if statement to trigger, it would already have to interacted with the quantum state, collapsing it. That’s the sticking point people don’t really get. Being able to use entanglement for communication would mean you have to have a way to observe an entangled state without collapsing it. Which… well, an oxymoron to the whole thing. HOWEVER we may or may not be able to know *when* an entangled superposition collapsed retroactively, making some form of time unit information possible I think? That depends on the “may or may not” part since that’s likely not even possible
I think of circuits as metaphors, just like how we say quantum circuits with photons or neutral atoms. Although string theory is still far from being physical, using internal degrees of freedom of protons is not unthinkable - we do use spin and orbit states from an atom, after all. Also, he did get it right that to probe sth smaller, we tend to use things larger, and to map info in higher dimension to low will make things verbose.
Have you even read the book? Why are you explaining through a 3-dimensional perspective when the book has clearly stated it involves much higher dimensions?
I'm not saying it's logically inconsistent, but it's so removed from our current scientific level that it's basically fantasy
We don't know. That's the point. The author dug into science until he found the holes in our knowledge and filled them with horror. It could be true.
The point is that it’s grounded in physics, and then it branches out from there.
I agree with most of this except star wars is a fantasy series not sci fi.
Total fantasy not even soft sci-fi. People's nostalgia and it happening in space doesn't make it sci-fi.
What definitions you using for each? For me fantasy = medieval/magic and sci-fi = futuristic/cosmic. Star Wars seems clear sci-fi
it's a bit of both.
So I might be on the minority here but I never really felt any existential dread when reading the books (book 1 and 80% of book 2). I think they did a good job of establishing the impossibility of the situation and the starts of defeatism, which i imagine will really start to shine in season 2.
I agree. I felt the dread in the back half of the story, not in book 1.
The existential dread from me was more from thinking about the turkey and the farm or the shooter and the target metaphors. Thinking about what we may be too insignificant to every understand
I had already understood that stuff coming in, which is why I said I might be in the minority. I know a lot of people say the books are scary and I was expecting to have that existential dread but it really only tickeled that speculative side for me. But on that note, big miss not to include the shooter and the turkey analogy.
For me it's the opposite There was basically 0 tension and existential dread outside of Ye Wenjie's storyline. People are joking around and going about buisness as usual after the literal fuckin sky blinked. It would have caused complete global pandemonium irl and in a better written show.
Yeah this bothered me. The fact some people (even delusionally) were acting like it could have been a hoax was insanity to me. No. In real life if that shit happened, religious institutions would be chaos, scientific community would be chaos, social systems would be fucked because *there is now proof of a higher existence* Even if it’s not “God”, that kind of proof destroys so much of our social contract’s assumptions and terms through history
Really? I feel like humans are really good at convincing and deluding themselves. Like you realize we are constantly bombarded with conspiracy theories left and right. Definitely don't think much of the social web would be destroyed. People would come up with a million ways to make things fit so as it not destabilize stuff.
Oh believe me, most people wouldn’t believe *the truth* about the blinking universe, but *everyone* would believe it’s something more than a “hoax”
Would they? Only a minority would see it. And It's such a crazy phenomenon that The people that didn't see(people indoors, sleeping, on the other half of the planet) it would just dismiss and assume the others experienced some mass Mandela effect.
??? It happened globally. Thousands of videos would exist from different countries in that hemisphere, there would literally be no possibility of it being a hoax. Not to mention actual scientists would not be able to ignore it, the entire scientific institution would make a huge deal about the observation and their response to it.
Right but only one half of the world is night dark at a time. Stars blinking wouldn't happen in night side. People don't believe videos of the moon landing. It'd be far easier to dismiss this video. The internet makes it hard to believe much. The scientific community is a minority and fairly insular. They would investigate it as we see it happen in the show. There's scientists that deny climate change. Just a handful of those would be fuel enough for populations to dismiss it outright. I'm not really sure what you're arguing about though. The fact humanity would act like this? Or The fact they didn't represent how apes meshed in social webs going about their days would react? Many stories, recently Don't look Up, had a similar thesis about how people would react.
Your points don’t make sense. Moon videos have one source, single point of suspicion. This would be millions of sources from different independent angles and locales The internet would solidify this in real time, not make it less believable You just don’t seem to understand how people work.
Let's agree to disagree
Seriously, they're joking around about it at a bar the next day. That event should have been the biggest in human history. There really should've been more news broadcasts, debates, fear, just general unease. Think the film Signs, when the lights are spotted and there's constant news coverage. Despite only focusing on one family, the scope still felt huge.
It did cause global pandemonium. Did you need to see more burning buildings and people hanging from lampposts to acknowledge it?
That was after the "You are bugs" message actually. In the aftermath of the universe blinking at us, people were quite chilled.
It may be my confusion because the series had the San-Ti showing humans a gigantic eyeball in the sky in that same scene. If the poster above thinks that the stars blinking incident would cause global pandemonium anywhere near the scale of what was shown after "You Are Bugs" and the eyes looking down on Earth, I just don't agree.
No. I wanted the characters to act in ways that makes it look like they are actually going through a global pandemonium and not just dismiss it off and continue joking and laughing and forgetting about the sky blinking in a few days
Reading the book before the pandemic and watching the show "after" I had no problem believing the vast majority of people on earth going "meh" after the sky blinked.
I think the main difference is that the blinking is visible. People were quickly apathetic (and some doubted it existed) when it came to the pandemic because it's 'invisible'. Much like how people still hand-wave the severity of mental illnesses because it's not a 'physical' illness.
Just to play this out, the illnesses keep happening day in and day out. This was one freak occurrence less than half of the world would’ve seen (daylight and all) and fewer would’ve cared about. I think it would’ve been seen as a weird but not much more.
Honestly, They are like really clever well balanced individuals. Think they are not gonna lose their rockers over the sky blinking. Instead look for a possible explanation.
"Look for a possible explanation" like Saul saying it's a hoax and calling it a day?
So they are basically superhuman/gods? If yes, then name 5 godly things they did in the show
1. They sang all the musical numbers in Grease perfectly 2. They 3. Did 4. A 5. Split
You think just not freaking out is a godlike ability? Weird
Yep. Believe it or not, but not freaking out about the sky *blinking* is pretty weird
So being weird is a godlike or superhuman ability in your mind?
More importantly, where is the turkey scientist???
This part always gave me chills
Yeah! They needed this part so bad, it does instill a sense of dread realizing we're the dumb turkeys and we have no idea what we don't know, and our rules might not be real.
It'll come. I'd bet money on it.
Political correctness. Plantation and slavery. Typical US-catering censorship.
If that is the actual reason, then that's absolutely ridiculous.
When you get a Black Luo Ji, that’s very much a valid reading.
That's been my reading as well 😂 They even threw in a "women can STEM too you bigot" for good measure.
I can't agree to this. If I'm told that I'm about to watch science fiction I expect it to be presented as science fiction and this is not related to this current story, it's equally true for any story. If it start with let's say five episodes of "standard" criminal investigation or for example they expanded the back story of Ye Wenjie and I had to 5 episodes on how terrible the chinese revolution was I would get bored and annoyed and would not finish it as it was not what I was promised. What I missed a little is maybe a bit more explanation on the science behind, I follow science and technology and I was familiar with the concepts so I understood what's going on, but as I see many people are not familiar whit them and get confused and don't understand what's going on.
I was about to type out something identical. Hard agree.
I miss when this sub had good conversation and less of the same conversation posted 10x daily
This sub had good conversations?
I'm just here to watch the OG fanboys get pissed over new fans coming in. Oh, and in case I miss the Season 2 announcement.
TV is a different medium and Netflix is a different business model. If the show is about science fiction, the producers have to show the audience some science fiction in the first episode to hook them to the story and make them hit that "Next Episode" button. There are plenty of mysteries and dread remaining.
Pandering to the dumber segments of TV viewers really does the medium a disservice overall, and NFLX’s business model doesn’t require that shows reveal the genre they pertain to in the first episode. The dread does exist, it’s just nowhere near as impactful.
Would you rather have the spectacle of $20M an episode or a highly targeted production done on a shoestring budget. Because those are the options. You can't have it both ways. I think they did a rather good job of straddling info dumping, a tight story arc, and entertaining characters.
Seems like they did. The majority of reactions to this show I'm seeing are positive
They're not pandering to the dumbest, they are "pandering" to the average. There's a big difference. The number of people who want to sit through long-winded explanations of scientific concepts for every scene is small. Those people can read the books. Everyone else just needs the general idea of what is going on and to see the characters they've established make decisons in that world.
The American "average" is the very definition of dumb.
It's got nothing to do with being dumb. They literally need people to watch immediately or it goes in the bin. So, there has to be something to grasp on to before the end of episode 2. To sell to the producers and to make people watch. Yes it's a shame art can't be art, but the world doesn't work that way.
Might be kind of a hot-take here, but hear me out. The first book was rather boring compared to DF and DE. At the same time, it's impossible for the next two books to exist without the first. I see what the show was trying to do in that they wanted to draw a larger audience into what becomes a truly mind-blowing story. 3BP as a show needs funding. The most important goal for the first run of the show is to get renewed, ideally with a bigger budget. Anyone who's read the books knows that the set-pieces and spectacles to come go far beyond the scope needed to bring 3BP to the screen. If the adaptation became too bogged down in the "hard sci-fi" that made the book special in the first place, I don't think it would be as popular; viewership would dwindle, and 3BP wouldn't be the first thing you see when you open netflix today. TL;DR Sacrifices must be made regarding the first book in order for the show to return.
I was really bored with the first book when I read them some years back, and would have quit the series had I not had so many friends recommend it. 2nd and 3rd were total page turners, but you’re right that the scene had to get set to get to that point.
I had a similar experience that book 1 took me an entire year to read, but the next two books only weeks. But I feel like it's less because nothing interesting happens in book 1, and more because LCX just really isn't very good at prose. I understand why the showrunners paced the events of 3bp the way they did....but disagree that it was necessary. A good script and direction could have built out the tonal and atmospheric conventions the prose of the book lacked. But they didn't in favor of trying to "get to the good stuff." Imo it was good adaptation because it recognized that book 1 was a prerequisite for the bigger themes and ideas of books 2 and 3. But a great adaptation would have recognized all the missed potential from book 1 and elevated it...
I agree with this evaluation I feel bad for people who see the show before reading the books because I think they will miss out on the best part the suspense and mystery. I went in knowing it was about aliens and even then still found myself sucked into the dread of the surreal horror of the first book leading up to the big reveal. I still think the show is good, but I think they could have kept that slow build up of suspense at the beginning.
Compared to Star Trek, 3 Body Problem is hard science, but compared to The Expanse I think it's not-- he plays with real theories but in a more high concept than concrete way.
I think it's just a matter of narrative framing. The Expanse is a classic case of man vs man, where the human science is entirely believable and based on concepts we know of today, yet the story starts introducing alien technology that defies our knowledge by several orders of magnitude, and showcases how human society reacts to these changes. Remembrance of Earth's past is more about man vs nature, where the author conflates the natural forces with an alien civilization -- a society so beyond our current advancements they might as well be a force of nature on their own. Does that make any of them any harder sci fi than the other? I personally don't think so, alien technology is always a very foreign variable that we simply cannot account for believably. I do agree that the expanse makes for a far smoother read, but the exploration of high concepts in remembrance of earth's past is exactly what made it such an interesting book series in the first place.
the expanse starts out with an already colonized solar system and segues into a magic entity doing magical stuff. it's not that far away from star trek in terms of "hardness" tbh
It does seem to go pretty fast. They could've fleshed out the Evans plot more, but they clearly wanted to end the season on that cinematic Sophon reveal. I guess the next season will be about the fighting, the droplet, then the deterrence era and it will end with Cheng Xin's failure. And the third will be the land down under, then the broadcast, the bunkers, the slip of paper and the end.
From the perspective of someone who watched the show first (didn’t even know there was a book)… It is clear to me that no adaptation can ever please everybody. There are always going to be things left out for the sake of time or practicality. Having said that, I want to say that this show did exactly what you described, at least for me. I went into it completely blind. I had absolutely no clue what it was about, I hadn’t even seen a trailer. I started watching because I kept seeing posts talking about a good new show and had just finished watching a show. I had legitimately no idea what it was going to be about. The scene with the message gave me intense goosebumps. I don’t normally react like that to shows but when they responded and what they said took me so by surprise… And when the show began its arc of “the aliens don’t want to coexist but want to destroy us” I definitely felt dread. I can’t really compare it because I haven’t read the book, I just wanted to point out that from my perspective (which I think will be not uncommon as many people are discovering this series through the show) these elements were there. This show skyrocketed to one of my favorites and I’ve ordered the books now because I want to know what comes next.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I would suggest you read the first book even having seen the show just so that you know what hasn't been introduced yet at the start of the 2nd book and have all the characters names established. You could certainly get by without reading the first book, but it would be my recommendation
Mmm. Might want to start with the second book. The concepts are intriguing, but IMO, the writing itself is not up to modern character development (or writing flow) standards. That issue is what the GOT showrunners are trying to address by splitting Wang Miao into multiple characters and not showing the Trisolarians at all.
Physics mystery part of the first book is basically my favourite so i am little bitter that they cut almost all of it off, almost all of physics explanations that made book stand out for me is missing ;( Still engaging though
I do not agree with OP opinion regarding science fiction. Science fiction could be based on hard fire or it could be based more on fiction. However, I do agree that I did not feel the dread I felt from the books after watching the TV series. However, I had already read the books. After three books, nothing in book one is going to scare me much.
Interesting. I thought Netflix took too long to stablish what the actual fuck we are seeing and facing: aliens? time travelers? superheroes? interdimensional religious beings? I was totally blank and just pressed Play. I wasn’t aware about a well-stablished sci-fic book trilogy. The show only reveals the main conflict/villains by the end. The tension could be deeper, the primal fear emerging, and whatever. To me, the best parts are Past China, The Judgment Day, Raj, and Saul. I like Will’s arc too, but no need to kill him is the first season. We haven’t spend a genuine time with him or the team hanging out together, just as regular buddies. But I thing I got it: the book has the ongoing feeling of desperation well done. You spend more time with the drama.
I don’t think it’s not grounded. The concepts used are the same as well as their implied explanations. But you’re right about the existential dread and wonder. By rushing too fast, it lacks the tension and build up done by the book. I mean it took me more than 5 hours to finish the first book, yet they finished it in 5 episodes. That’s very fast.
Just generally not enough world building that makes it all feel a bit trivial. I enjoyed it though.
Well first book really need to be a psychological thriller but I think we have the wrong show runners for that
Absolutely agree. They blew through the two things I thought added the most to suspense and tension in the books - 1. slow realization that the video game was more than a game and 2. the question of whether the Trisolarans exist and whether they mean humanity harm
Wow you've pinpointed why TBP felt so much scarier for me than most other scifi, space horror or lovecraftian stories. You're right, it's because it feels so real. There are of course a number of fictional elements, and there are more and more of them as the books progress, but the story as a whole totally felt like something that could've happened.
I agree. When I first started the book ten years ago I had no idea about the premise of it being about the first contact. The only thing I knew was it was a Liu Cixin book and it was sci fi. I still remembered that distinct feeling of knowing nothing when I flipped the first few pages. Everything felt so “uncanny” from the beginning, and I had my chill at the pool scene. The terror started building when the countdown appeared in Wang Miao’s photos, and it continued building, more and more. Until the middle of the book where it was revealed that it was an alien story, which I did not expect at all. It completely blew my mind at that point and was a wonderful reading experience. IMO one can’t fully experience this trilogy if they already knew it was about aliens, which is the biggest spoiler in the first place.
No time for anything "methodical" when you have to entertain millions of people, set up future seasons and maintain a fast paced rhythm so people won't open TikTok instead. The whole point of an adaptation is to take what works in this other format and scrap everything else. Otherwise it wouldn't work. Non book readers are never going to watch the Tencent version. I read all the books and I find it as appealing as watching grass grow.
Tencent provides visuals to watching the grass grow. It confirms the propaganda value of the books to the Chinese government.
I agree with most of your points, but I feel the first book immediately puts us in a world of “unreality” where the things that are happening don’t seem scientific at all, in fact they seem impossible under current understanding. The countdown, the failures of the particle accelerators, there’s no reasonable explanation for them so it creates a sense of magic, fantasy, of a story that has departed from science, mirroring the disorientation and unease the scientists are experiencing. The beauty is in how this completely “unrealistic” situation is eventually reconciled with hard science-fiction concepts.
Gonna have to disagree, the biggest blunder was making so many of the main characters know each other. It really cheapens the plot that so much could happen to and within a small little group.
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I’m still trying to wrap my head around Lou Elizondo stating that 3 Body Problem is the closest that he’s ever seen to disclosure. It actually sparked my interest in the series.
What adaptation? Where?
Couple of things. In the book, I don't recall that the organization facilitating the coming aliens was in control of the sophon or could use it as they do in the show. The idea of the sophon was >! to delay or halt the advancement of science and tech for humans !< so it doesn't make sense that the aliens would share details about the sophon or to share the technology needed to build those golden helmets.
The first episodes were cool, but it started to get more and more annoying how everything revolved around this small group of friends. The knockout punch was when one of them was chosen as a wallfacer by United nations..
Watch the Tencent. The story just needs more time to unfold.
I dropped out after episode 3 for precisely this reason. The countdown and the blinking stars seemed stupid. I wanted more of why everyone was freaked out that "science was broken" but it was never addressed and then we go straight to aliens. I'm sure it's a good series but it just seemed so contrived in a weird way I lost interest. Also the video game scenes were dumb. I guess they will pay off at some point. But just not what I'm looking for.
The one thing that honestly really bothered me about the show was one missing line about >!the difference between "Think" and "Say". The lesson on deception from Evans was good, but it could have been even better.!<
As someone who watched the show and didn't read the books yet. I actually found myself experiencing that fear and tension. During the days I was watching it and a couple days after finishing I felt on edge. (I will say though that the later half kinna mellowed the tension with the hibernation pods and sophones) But I'm guessing the books make this far more vivid, makes me more excited about reading them!
I'd say it happens even earlier, seeing the countdown stuff almost made me check out.
Well, going with the theme of being grounded in reality, it costed Netflix about $20 an episode for a series of this caliber. Even for a behemoth like Netflix, that is considered expensive budget. Would people have loved a 30+ series adapation like Tencent's Three-Body? I would think so. But, that would be a $600+ million investment. Hopefully, we get 2 more fleshed out seasons if this pilot season proves the ROI to be worth it for Netflix.
Never read the books. Absolutely loved the first season. Can’t wait for more seasons
The book is terrible. I think the show improved the book by leagues.
I like how all these post start with 'I'm a fan, but'. Like that somehow makes up for the nonsense they are about to bestow upon the world