Questions tagged [remembrance-of-earths-past]
For questions about the science fiction novel series "Remembrance of Earth's Past" by the Chinese author Cixin Liu. This includes its first novel, "The Three-Body Problem." For questions about the 2024 Netflix TV series based on this series, use the [3-body-problem-2024] tag instead. If your question is overlapping in scope, you may use both tags.
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Why didn't Luo Ji tell everyone what Ye Wenjie told him?
In The Dark Forest, while Luo Ji was trying to figure out the significance of what Ye Wenjie told him about cosmic sociology, why didn't he just publicly announce the few things she had said so the ...
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Why is it impossible to escape a Black Domain?
While reading Death's End, I realised that there seems to be a big problem with the concept of a domain.
My understanding of the concept of escape velocity is that it is the minimal necessary speed ...
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What was the "safety broadcast"?
In Death's End, the final installment of the Remembrance of Earth's Past series, there is a scene in which Cheng Xin and Luo Ji are invited to tea with Sophon, an embodiment of the Trisolaran's sophon....
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What is "Military Democracy" as referenced in Death's End?
In Liu Cixin's Rememberance of Earth's Past series book 3: Death's End, Cheng Xin has joined the PIA – planetary defence intelligence agency – as an intern. Her boss presents as an acerbic yet ...
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How is this fission-drive supposed to work?
In the second installment of Remembrance of Earth's Past (AKA the 3-Body Problem series), The Dark Forest, one of the scientific advances is a fission-driven spacecraft. That is that a "non-...
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Why did Ye Wenjie give Luo Ji the axioms of cosmic sociology?
In the prologue of The Dark Forest, Ye Wenjie has a conversation with Luo Ji in which she reveals the "axioms of cosmic sociology" as well as the concepts of "chains of suspicion" ...
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Why was the name for Death's End changed in translation?
The final book in Cixin Liu's Three Body series was titled in Chinese, 死神永生. The first 2 characters translated literally mean "death spirit", a personification of death. In English an ...
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Why did the Trisolarans announce their one weakness?
Early in the novel, Ye Wenjie makes a brief appearance and suggests to astronomer Luo Ji that he consider creating a new branch of science, the sociology of interplanetary society. This would be based ...
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In "Death's End" by Cixin Liu, is there a fundamental issue with the "sheet of paper" mechanics/physics? [closed]
The issue is with the "sheet of paper" concept. Spoilers ahead.
In the story, a two-dimensional plane is shot into the solar system and as it interacts with three-dimensional matter, it ...
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Why were the authorities so lenient towards Ye Wenjie?
During her interrogation, Ye Wenjie confesses to at least the following:
This is in addition to the fact that she has been caught red-handed
It would seem that she would meet easily the threshold ...
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Is Trisolaris an allegory of the Cultural Revolution?
The defining characteristic of life for the Trisolarans is that it is chaotic. Phenomena of the natural world which most humans would instinctively think of as fixed and eternal, such as tides and ...
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Why didn't the Trisolarans use sophons as probes?
As soon as the Trisolarans receive Ye's transmission, the supreme leader orders their migration/invasion fleet, still under construction, to set out in the direction of the radio transmission as soon ...
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Why is the "listening device" on Trisol also a transmitter?
The "listening device" on Trisol was used to send transmissions to Earth. Later those transmissions were observed by another distant civilization.
Why did it even have the ability to ...
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Why not use sophons to freeze the whole planet?
Trisolarans knew about the rule "sit silent," so they should not allow Earth to send another transmission. That means they must use sophon to freeze Earth (just like what happened with the ...
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Was Battle Command Centre aware they were dealing with an extraterrestrial civilization?
Early in the book, protagonist Wang Miao is introduced to Battle Command Centre and given to understand that there is some kind of war or struggle going on, although he's unclear who or what they are ...
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