This post is about the second book in Cixin Liu’s Three Body series, “The Dark Forest.” If you are familiar with the theoretical concept of a “Dark Forest” universe, then you already have a sense of what the book is about… but only a sense.
Caution: SPOILERS!
In this book, man finally makes first contact with a probe from another world. The object that reaches our own solar system is small, no larger than a truck, and it is shaped like a droplet of mercury. The following passage describes the moment in which a man-made probe touches the droplet for the first time.
“It was at this point that people noticed a strange contrast: The mechanical arm was obviously designed purely as a functional object, with a rugged steel frame and exposed hydraulics that that felt complicatedly technological and crudely industrial. But the droplet was perfect in shape, a smoothly gleaming, solid drop of liquid whose exquisite beauty erased all functional and technical meaning and expressed the lightness and detachment of philosophy and art. The steel claw of the robot arm clutched the droplet like the hairy hand of Australopithecus clutching a pearl. The droplet looked so fragile, like a glass thermos liner in space, that everyone was afraid it would shatter in the claw. But that did not occur, and the robot arm began to retract” (407, Liu).
This is man’s first physical contact with an extraterrestrial, and humanity is indeed transfixed like a cave man gazing for the first time into the heart of a gem. Up to this point, the alien fleet had seemed to be decelerating while humanity’s new space fleet could reach 15% the speed of light and was growing rapidly. Man was arrogant, riding high on his own progress.
I love the strangeness of the Trisolarin probe. I was absolutely transfixed reading the build up to first contact! As the human probe approaches the alien one, and docks, and latches on… it is so exciting and wonderful! The first humans to physically approach the probe with space suits were amazed to find that its surface gave almost no friction. Under a microscope, they see that its surface is like that of a mirror, with almost no space at all between the atoms that make it up. Doctor Ding Yi finally grabs a rock pick hits the droplet directly. Not a scratch.
“The fact that the droplet did not self-destruct was final proof of what people had guessed: If it was a military prove, it surely would have self destructed after falling into enemy hands. It was now certain that this was a gift from Trisolaris to humanity, a sign of peace sent in that civilization’s baffling mode of expression” (408, Liu).
Cixin Liu sets up a fall so dramatic and obvious. The ensuing fallout is almost hard to read. And yet, the literal melting of the Earth fleet in the open space beyond Neptune is beautiful in its own horrifying way. Humanity was transfixed like fry before an angler fish’s lure, and we paid the price of an entire space fleet for our wonder.
This outcome was foreshadowed, of course. The very beginning of the book starts with a depiction of an ant crawling through the impressions of a tombstone. Despite our hubris, we were only ants to Trisolaris, and our greatest show of force was crushed beneath the abstract boot of a strange space object from 4 light years away. Humanity was simply on another level. It is like a man with a bow-and-arrow trying to take down a tank. The bow user cannot even scratch the surface of the tank, let alone apply any force strong enough to slow its advance.
All told, “The Dark Forest” follows in Three Body’s footsteps in setting up a mysterious alien threat throughout the story and then dropping an awesome alien reveal right at the end. The first book did this too, slowly intimating the existence of the aliens without giving us concrete physical details about their life and culture until the last few chapters. The anticipation of discovery is sublime!
I have already started the third book, and the direction it seems to be going is already so bizarre. Humanity has shipped a frozen human brain into deep space…
No matter how many thousands of years we put between ourselves and our cave dwelling ancestors, some things do not change!