The Most Horrifying Science Fiction Series of All | The Three-Body Problem Series

The Cover Art to this video is by Marc Simonetti. The wrong attribution is given in the video, my apologies.

reminds me of a short story i've read that went: after decades of sending messages out there we finally got one back. It said "Quiet. They are listening"

My favourite part of this series is the notion that after all the collective effort of human research and technological advancement, that the most enduring way to capture information is carving it in stone.

I introduced one of my best friends to the series. He’s currently reading The Dark Forest - not even halfway through - and he called me and I listened to his existential crisis for 30 mins. I told him, not to worry, you’ll soon forget about your crisis because it will be replaced by pure terror. 😬

When it comes to aliens or something like that, we always consider ourselves somehow prepared for the first contact and ought to seek for it. Liu Cixin reminds us of the simple fact: we are not, not even close.

One of my favourite quotes from the series: Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is

When the "universe blinked" in the first book, i was intrigued. When the Dark Forest theory was explained in the second book, i hid under my bed. When they started to use cosmological constants as weapons in the third book, i lost my mind. These books are intense!

Just finished the first book. To those worried about spoilers in this video, rest assured: these books are so good that learning more about what's going on in the story's universe ahead of time only increases the enjoyment of reading them.

I'd like to note that Trisolaris was the first to make contact. A group of people sympathetic to other civilizations essentially asked Earth to stay quiet so that the rest of Trisolaris wouldn't find them. Yi Wenjie then sent a message back essentially saying "come get me bro" notifying the rest of Trisolaris, and the rest is history.

The Dark Forest fucked me up so badly that it took me three days to get through the first contact battle with the teardrop. It’s such an emotionally draining story to get through, but so good that it’s completely worth it.

My favorite thing about Lovecraft's works is he wasn't afraid to make his aliens ALIEN. He had aliens made of exotic matter. He had aliens that could only be perceived as a color. One of his less alien aliens are equal parts fungus and shrimp.

I started reading the first book not knowing it was about aliens. It was a wild trip when the reveal happened.

This trilogy was absolutely incredible. It legitimately changed the way I look at the universe and terrified me in a way I didn’t think possible. Hands down the best sci-fi I’ve experienced

The "Dark forest" theory reminds of another Sci-fi story I read long ago: The killing star, by Charles Pellegrino. In it, humanity discovers light-speed travel, and is attacked without provocation and brought to near-extinction by an unknown alien species, using light-speed missiles impossible to track, impossible to intercept or dodge, and devastatingly powerful. The motivation of the alien invaders was simple: Protection. It was a pre-emptive strike against humanity, because a species with light-speed travel is far too dangerous to keep as a neighbor.

Honestly, reading the star getting destroyed then realizing it was by a far worse civilization than the Trisolarans was terrifying

Just finished reading the main Trilogy... I have to say thank you for exposing me to such a thoughtful story. The books really helped expand my views on civilization, society, the actions of individuals, responsibility and our place in the universe. Even though the story might get sad and dark sometimes, by the end of the third book, my outlook on life was somehow more positive

Your video essays on this series are the best essays of their kind on the platform. They fill me with dread, hope, and curiosity. I've shared them with many people, and I'm currently watching it with my dad while visiting him for the day. He's loving it.

Quinn, there's another implication that can be drawn from this series: Dimension Strikes destroy dimensions, therefore it's only a matter of time before life destroys all dimensions. Total collapse of the universe might imply another Big Bang and the recreation of life which would ultimately destroy that universe and the cycle would continue ad infinitum.

I think this book is a metaphor for China’s modern history. Two hundred years ago it was the richest empire on Earth. Western powers came, their technology was too advanced to counter. Their weapons and political system evolved from a thousand years of intercivilizational and international warfare. China was defeated, occupied, dismembered, and it took over a century of civil wars and clumsy attempts to modernize to be competitive again. But in that process the civilization changed beyond recognition. So while it survived and succeeded, it was a traumatic and horrifying experience that continues to this day. On the other hand for Westerners the Age of Discovery led to the New World, and eventual colonization and domination of distant civilizations. This is why Western Sci-fi is exemplified by the optimism of Star Trek. The universe is full of opportunity and no danger is unconquerable.

Thanks for introducing me to this series. I finished it 2 weeks ago, went through the existential crisis and am finally ready to watch the rest of your videos about it. I have never seen such a compelling argument for the dark forest hypothesis and I am now a firm believer that we should stop broadcasting our existence into space. It was awesome, thank you.