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In May 2006, when "The Three-Body Problem" began serialization in Science Fiction World magazine, Liu Cixin probably did not anticipate the impact of the words she wrote.
With the completion of the first part of "Three-Body Problem", the English translation of "Three-Body" has also been able to meet overseas readers such as Europe and the United States under the efforts of translator Liu Yukun.
This huge work, which later won the 73rd Hugo Award for Best Novel, also set off a reading boom after being introduced to the United States. Not only the business tycoons, Facebook founder Zurberg praised. Even former President Barack Obama could not suppress his love for "The Three-Body Problem", personally sending people to preemptively take multiple sets before the third part was published.
However, it is worth noting that before the release of the American version of "The Three-Body Problem", Liu Cixin took the time to personally write an afterword for it.
In the afterword, Liu Cixin reviewed his early experience, told how he had a great interest and desire for the vast starry sky and the vast universe step by step, and how he embarked on the road of science fiction creation step by step, using words to pin his infinite imagination of the future world.
But at the end, Da Liu Pen feng turned around and directly revealed his original intention of writing. Since the original text is in English, it can only be hastily translated, and the meaning is roughly as follows.
Da Liu believes that he wrote "The Three-Body Problem" because he always believed that extraterrestrial civilizations were the greatest potential threat to mankind. Although today is still quiet and the world is stable, no one knows whether there will really be a Trisolaran Starfleet staying around the earth when they wake up tomorrow.
But unfortunately, in reality, there is a phenomenon that makes Da Liu very confused.
"On Earth, one can land on another continent without hesitation and destroy the civilizations of the same kind there with war and plague, but turn their warm eyes to the stars, thinking that if there is extraterrestrial intelligent life, they will also be civilizations bound by unified and noble morality."
Therefore, the theme of "The Three-Body Problem" is naturally obvious. There is no doubt that Da Liu tries to tell the reader that human beings have sincere goodwill towards alien civilizations, but they are suspicious of each other, which is undesirable and should not exist, and the reader who has not yet discovered this absurd reality has become the primary task of "The Three-Body Problem".
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Credulous belief in alien civilizations and unwillingness to believe in one's own people is not uncommon in The Three-Body Problem. At least in "The Three-Body Problem", human civilization has suffered three times because of its credulity and denial of itself.
In the first part of "The Three-Body Problem", Ye Wenjie sent the coordinates of the earth to the Three-Body Civilization, and then established a human organization that worshiped the Three-Body Civilization, referred to as the ETO.
In the process of development and growth, the ETO has absorbed many members, including even politicians, scholars and other elites of human society. What is puzzling, however, is that these elites, who have an extraordinary position in human society, have shown great dissatisfaction with human civilization.
They either believe in the extreme ugliness of human civilization and hope that the Trisolaran will destroy this adventist of this low-level civilization. Or to regard the three-body as a supreme superior civilization, as a salvation faction to be worshipped by the gods.
It can be said that the three-body can preemptively grasp a large amount of key information of human civilization, and the ETO is indispensable. And the ETO that gives up the information materials of the civilization to which I belong, the strengths and weaknesses, and the one who does not fall to others does make me feel a little frightened outside the novel.
The second time humans have sent themselves to a dead end because of their own struggles, it is in the third part of "The Dark Forest" of "Three-Body".
At that time, the Trisolaran civilization and human civilization established a means of deterrence, and humans established a brief peace with the Trisolaran civilization by selecting a sword bearer and controlling a button that could send the coordinates of the trisolaran civilization to the universe. But this deterrent is actually a lose-lose option, because human civilization, while exposing the coordinates of the Trisolaran civilization, will also pass on the location of the Earth to potential other civilizations.
Therefore, when the previous Wallfacer Luo Ji was old, many people began to worry, afraid that he would press the button on a momentary impulse to lead the two civilizations to the end at the same time. As distrust of Luo Ji intensifies, humans choose to give control to Cheng Xin, who seems harmless to humans and animals.
The end result was that the trisolaran civilization directly invaded the earth, Cheng hesitated, could not make a choice, deterred failure, and almost all humans were driven to the closed continent of Australia.
This failure of mankind is fundamentally due to internal disharmony. Luo Ji had earlier grasped the Dark Forest Theory and made great contributions to establishing deterrence and winning peace. However, human beings naively think that the three-body civilization has been transformed into evil and the degree of danger has been greatly reduced, and then arranging someone with a high "deterrent" like Luo Ji as a sword bearer will endanger its own safety.
Once again, human civilizations that chose to believe in alien civilizations, rather than their own people, were once again invaded. It is no wonder that Zhizi said to Cheng Xin, who failed to deter, "You don't have to blame yourself, all mankind is innocent of you."
The third time humans are put on the risk, it is because they choose to abandon the construction of light-speed spaceships in the face of the possible attacks of higher civilizations, resulting in the singer civilization launching a two-way foil strike, and all humans are almost forever left in the two-dimensional plane of the solar system.
In fact, humans would have had the opportunity to keep more fires, because they had already guessed the existence of dimensionality reduction strikes from the beginning. However, fearing that the trajectory of the lightspeed spacecraft may reveal its specific location in advance, most of the public firmly resists the study of the light-speed spacecraft, choosing to use the strike methods of the higher civilizations may not be so violent, and may only be an excuse to destroy the sun to console themselves, turning a blind eye to possible dimensionality reduction strikes. It seems that by deceiving yourself, everything does not exist.
It can be said that this is actually a manifestation of strong distrust of human beings for the same kind, because the so-called fear of coordinate exposure is really nonsense. The coordinates have long been exposed, it is only a matter of time before they are hit, and what they are afraid of is actually that after the lightspeed spacecraft is built, it is not themselves who are the first to flee in the face of the blow, but others.
As a result, only 2 people in the entire solar system survived on the secretly built lightspeed spacecraft, while hundreds of millions of other people paid the due price for their doubts and suspicions of their compatriots.
From exposing the coordinates, to confronting the three bodies, to escaping the final blow, in fact, human beings have many opportunities.
But history is so strikingly similar. For nearly 400 years, from the Age of Crisis to the Age of Bunkers, humanity has not yet learned to trust each other.
Why do they often show great respect in the face of extraterrestrial civilizations, but always show deep hostility when facing their compatriots?
Da Liu did not give a reason, but the absurdity and error of this behavior, Da Liu gave an absolute negation.
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Somehow there is a question, does "The Three-Body Problem" portray humans too ugly?
Indeed, readers who have read "The Three-Body Problem" will feel that Liu Cixin has shown no mercy in showing the ugliness and fainting of human nature. The result of Luo Ji, who stood up for humanity, was that "humanity does not thank Luo Ji"; when the human race as a whole is threatened, there will always be a situation where individuals fall for each other in order to escape.
But these are not Liu Cixin's brainless amplifications of the evil of human nature, in fact, all of this can be traced in reality.
For example, Liu Cixin's statement in the American version of the afterword that "people can land on another continent without scruples and destroy the civilization of the same kind there with war and plague" is the best example.
American scholar Jared. In Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Society, Diamond points out:
"The reason why different societies have developed on different continents is because of differences in continental environments, not biological differences among humans. The main historical process of the past ten thousand years has been that groups of humans with guns, germs, and steel, or with earlier technological and military advantages, expanded at the expense of other groups until the latter were replaced or everyone began to share in these new advantages. ”
Looking at the history of Western civilization, it can be completely believed that the West developed on the basis of corpses and white bones. They reached the American continent and, armed with sophisticated weapons, massacred the indigenous population. Bringing smallpox, measles, etc., which had never been seen by native Americans, to this chaotic land, the population of indigenous people without immunity was drastically reduced.
Western civilizations that made their fortunes certainly did not forget their old ways, and their development goals for centuries to come could actually be summed up in Diamond's conclusions—expansion at the expense of other groups.
Therefore, you can see that to this day, some Western civilized countries still have no small ambitions, and behind that ambition is the unspeakable desire to sacrifice other countries and achieve their own development.
But what is even more ridiculous is that some of the great powers that have hurt other countries that are also human civilizations the most have shown great kindness in exploring alien civilizations. For example, the United States, which has turned some backward countries upside down, has repeatedly sent what it considers friendly greetings to the Milky Way galaxy, and eagerly hopes to get a response from an alien civilization.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why Liu Cixin did not tell these words to Chinese readers, but chose to speak to American readers.
Because we ourselves uphold the concept of win-win consultation and human unity. We are promoting the Belt and Road Initiative, which benefits universally, and strive to build a harmonious and coherent community with a shared future for mankind.
Only the Western countries, led by the bald eagle, still unremittingly provoke human self-strife.
Perhaps Liu Cixin does not know how many people can make his words understand, perhaps in our view, Liu Cixin's ideas are too idealistic, and it is almost impossible to achieve the wolf ambitions of the bald eagle.
But I still sincerely hope that the goals pursued by Da Liu will one day come true.
"One day, humanity will become a harmonious whole, as in science fiction, and I believe that this day will not have to wait for the moment when aliens appear."