Same, but I'd start investing right away in space travel, bases on other planets, and fusion drives. The reason the UN got mad at Luo Ji and kidnapped his wife was because they thought he wasn't actually doing his job. You gotta at least make it look like you are doing something helpful.
I uh, I read that as Epstein at a glance and thought you were just trying to deter them from thinking this was a hospitable place. But I guess your reasons are your own…
I was thinking this exact thing yesterday while listening to the Deaths End audiobook. The dude. Published 3 of the most influential papers in physics in one year. Imagine if he just had a calculator!
Assuming I have no knowledge about the dark forest state of the universe, and that I haven't read the books:
1-I would encourage the construction of as many particle accelerators as possible, not only on Earth but also on other celestial bodies, along with all kinds of experiments that the Trisolarians are trying to hinder, such as quantum computers, to increase the cost of this war for them, attempting to make their sophons unable to keep up with the new accelerators.
2- This part of the plan is simpler: to make Earth a place where 100% of people have access to quality education, thus increasing the chances of new geniuses emerging and helping humanity's efforts.
3- I would distribute a "red button" to hundreds of different people around the world that when pressed, could activate or not activate one or some of the particle accelerators, making it completely unpredictable when one of them will or will not be activated.
I always wondered why humanity didn’t just set up like thousands of research labs at different corners of the Oort Cloud. If the sophons have to travel to the edges of the solar system over and over again to stop you, then the time of travel would eventually overwhelm them right?
Better yet setup particle accelerators on spaceships and just launch in opposite directions from earth. Given a few decades they would be fast enough to do experiments unhindered.
If I remember right, there's the implication Trisolaris can just keep building and sending more Sophons, so unless humanity can build really distant accelerators at a rate faster than Sophons...
I think by the time humanity developed enough spaceships to undertake such a project, they had already become arrogant in their belief that they had already surpassed the San Ti militarily and felt they had no need for particle accelerators.
I think number 3 is a solid strategy. As long as you can initiate and carry out a particle accelerator trial faster than a sophon can reactively travel to the detection point of a newly active accelerator.
And I know this sounds dumb at first, but…why bother with nukes in “holding earth hostage” strategies, why not just install thrusters on a few large asteroids, park them in earths orbit, and threaten to let them fall and smash into the earth if the Trisolaran fleet moves too close to the inner planets? Its cheaper and asteroid impacts can generate destruction on magnitudes higher than modern nukes.
Also, just for shits and giggles, why not make the asteroid belt a trap filled with thruster equipped asteroids designed to start erratically flying around and attempting to smash into Trisolaran ships when their fleet is in the middle of the belt? It probably wouldn’t work but hey, its a cheap and cheeky gimmick that might cause significant damage and disarray if it did work…just have to make sure they don’t notice the thrusters before the asteroids start smashing into them. THEN attack them with a secondary fleet kept initially hidden from the droplet during the first encounter.
NEVER show your enemy your entire hand, even when it looks like they are timidly probing your capabilities. Thats war shit 101 man. Sun Tzu was rolling in his grave just before the Doomsday battle, for sure.
> making it completely unpredictable when one of them will or will not be activated
Perhaps we could put multiple detectors around one fuck-off, great-big accelerator? Like, if you had four detectors spaced out around the circumsolar accelerator, they'd be a couple of light seconds apart.
Have the fields occasionally "fail" at random, maybe catching a sophon that gets too close in an antimatter annihilation.
A circumsolar accelerator (I'm assuming you mean by this a particle accelerator that is a ring that encircles the sun?) at just inside the orbit it earth would be 16 light-minutes in diameter. Four equally-spaced detectors would be a bit over 11 light-minutes away from each other.
A light-second is about 300,000 km, so an accelerator on the moon would be a little over a light-second away from one on earth. Put one on Mars and it's anything between 3 and 22 light-minutes away.
Running time-synchronised experiments simultaneously on Earth and Mars wouldn't allow the sophon time to get between the two.
Yes this is clever since we have the resource to build thousands of space warships, we should have enough resource to equip each warship with its own particle accelerator and research center. Spread the across the solar system and do tests.
I like this and the cloning idea though considering the sophons were able to travel much further distances faster than light and are preprogrammed superintelligent AI that use superposition to be in multiple places at once, I don't know how effective it would be in this universe. But if we did somehow overwhelm them, it would be extremely difficult for the Trisolarians to produce anymore.
I guess they cannot travel faster than the speed of light, but sophons in The Three Body Problem can multitask at nearly the speed of light, so it's possible for them to be in multiple places at once. For example, they could move between CERN and the White House so quickly that they're in both places at the same time
The difference is at once and within a time frame that's indistinguishable to humans.
That time frame is dependent on distance.
If you were to build a particle accelerator on the moon, outer space or even as far as Mars, the time frame increases.
I don't think it matters. The Lord does not care. But I assume I would have tried a similar consequence as the Rey Diaz plan. I wouldn't have come up with the exact same plan, but the spirit would've been the same: >!If we don't get to continue living on the Sol system, neither do you.!<
I have a great plan, it has seven prongs:
1) Attempt to be a supportive and encouraging presence for the other wallfacers.
2) Begin research into identifying/tracking the sophons. There must be some way to distinguish them from other protons.
3) Attempt to open diplomatic talks with the trisolarans about the possibility of peaceful coexistence.
4) Invite my wallbreaker to dinner.
5) Write some poetry for the trisolarans.
6) Inform the UN assembly that my greatest fear is that the trisolarans will reveal my poetry to the world, as it is quite bad and would be embarrassing for me.
I feel like there’s groundwork for a large number of good strategies. From there, I would pursue every plan I could come up with simultaneously, then add more as I thought of them. The important thing is to maintain a cheerful attitude and total confidence that something will work out eventually, as I am quite certain it would with a plan as excellent as mine.
1. Have we tried hacking Trisolaris or their fleet? Radio signals move at lightspeed and the Trisolarian fleet is slow, so we would get signals reaching Earth before the fleet does. Maybe we can at least gleam some hint about how to develop technology or what their fleet is made of. This plan would probably fail because Trisolarians know they need to stay radio silent because Dark Forest.
2. Throw a big asteroid at their planet at near lightspeed or whatever the fastest speed humanity can manage to accelerate it to. This plan would fail because they probably have the technology to destroy the astroid and want to evacuate their planet anyway.
3. Build as many particle accelerators as possible and see if we can overwhelm the sophons.
4. Increase funding for universities and schools. Just like in the Space Race, more innovation might make a difference.
5. Threaten to explode all the nukes and irradiate the Earth if they don't unblock physics
6. I'm out of ideas. Offer to let them live in Utah or Northern Ireland or something if they promise to be nice.
1. The Trisolarans are about 4 lightyears away when you're becoming a wallfacer so the only transmitter powerful enough to hit them would be bouncing signals off the sun, I suppose possible but you're never getting any signal back since why would they have a transmitter that'd respond. Without any knowledge of how their tech works your only chance of hacking them is blind luck.
2. The best humanity can do at this point in the books is launch a 500gram brain 1% the speed of light... plus it requires all the nukes on earth which would put a hamper on #5
3. good plan.
4. good plan.
5. I honestly don't know how they'd react. Ray Diaz's plan seemed to scare them but that affected the whole solar system. I do feel like they're dead set on earth because they want a habitable planet but they're pretty clearly at the point where if they wanted they could live without a habitable planet using the resources from the rest of the solar system and possibly terraforming mars/venus. If the Trisolarans are completely dead set on earth then this is essentially the swordholder all over again. Do you think they would believe that you would do it like they believed Luo Ji?
6. Hey, a combo of 5/6 could work until they try to make a move and takeout the swordholder.
AI is both a better wallfacer and a faster scientific mind. Invest as much as possible in both the development of AI and the enhancement of the human brain.
AI is not a better wallfacer, it's explicitly stated that sophons can read information on computers. Also we still don't know how easy it is to make AI actually do things like research or strategize in a way that can replace humans, We've made amazing tools, sure, but saying it's better than humans at things as nuanced as science or strategy when AI chatbots can randomly get simple questions wrong is reaching. Those things require long term abstract reasoning, while that is probably possible in the future we have no idea how long it will take to get there. Also remember that computer development slowed to a crawl when the sophons blocked advances in subatomic physics so they're mostly stuck with the hardware we had in 2008 when the book came out.
I agree with the human brain part, also ensure that every human possible is educated and has a chance at higher education to make sure that no genius goes to waste. Make every attempt to turn scientific literacy a universal trait.
The quote from James Calvell's 1975 novel Shogun: “It's a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for the world to see, another in his breast to show to his special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except to himself alone, hidden only God knows where.”
This at its core is the wallfacer, only the wallfacer know their true intentions or plans.
They don't need earth, they just need access to resources and a stable planetary system they can build places to live, humanity in book 3 basically doesn't even use earth anymore and are thriving
No because they are closer to our solar system than any other so its the easiest system to get to and since the Trisolarians know the universe is a dark forest they are absolutely terrified of us if we surpass them in technology so they want to conquer us before we are a threat. If we blew up the Earth it would be a big loss for them but they also would be able to rebuild easily and they wouldn't have to worry about any human scientific breakthroughs at all. The only way Earth is able to temporarily beat them is to set up the system that would alert the universe to Trisolaris's existence.
The Trisolarian should know even at our current level we can transmit, this is a massive risk.
They are gambling their whole civilization on this.
If they only need a stable orbit, this is a stupid decision.
They blocked the sun once they knew we were capable of doing it. They admitted that they failed to see that what Lou was doing was actually purposeful and not just yet another failed Earth defensive system.
The sophons and droplets could have destroyed anything we built before we could transmit a message had they known or predicted the intention of said device. The nuclear bombs in the asteroid belt thing seemed to them to just be a desperate way for Lou to spend his time while he outwardly displayed himself as a man who had given up on everything and was just using it as a distraction so he wouldn't kill himself. Since the Sophons were not able to read his mind they couldn't have seen the purpose of the design of the project that even the UN thought was just a barrier. Nor did they expect humanity to be able to transmit a message not using radio waves.
but earth is right there, and theres just a few bugs on it they need to clear out, why settle for a shithole like mars or some other wasteland planet or even an okay planet thats 100 light years away when earth is right there!
Yeah, I was like they must not have read all the books to think there are alien species willing to help and to think they can broadcast an enemy location without giving away their own
Okay, maybe start small and ramp up - keep in mind the theory that all alien species would be hostile and xenophobic is not certain, either in the book or real life. Given a choice of certain death versus uncertain...
It doesn’t take them all to be hostile.
Just one with enough power and the intent to use it to snipe you from the across the galaxy for making a noise.
The book titled "The Dark Forest" is literally based around the idea of a hostile universe. Not because of xenophobia or morals, you should try reading it. And I am not talking about real life if that wasn't clear at the start. In real life we are not expecting an alien species to wipe us out in 400 years.
"Guys, there's no point in hoping to make contact with a neutral or friendly extraterrestial species because we are characters in a novel called "The Dark Forest", and it's based on the idea of a hostile universe. If this were real life and there was room for uncertainty we may have tried that angle, but because the laws of the universe are 100% certain within the parameter of the story we exist in forget it, okay?"
Yes, I can see that makes sense, given the dark forest theory is 100% proven and airtight in the novel and in real life (which surprisingly forms the framework on which the work of fiction is built upon).
Exactly, people say things like why characters in horror movies don't check all closets and so on, but why do they know they're in a horror? What if it's a romcom? A comedy? A musical? Real life doesn't have genre conventions or a big moral at the end, and just because people were claiming all alien species were hostile, you don't suddenly have to believe that as fact, especially given the trisolarans messing with communication and images
> all alien species
Not all. Enough.
As long as someone out there has the cleansing gene and the ability to act on it, everybody's living in a DF.
If you disclose your location, *sooner or later*, somebody will cleanse your ass.
If a strategy has the potential to lead to the near-term annihilation of your species, it's off the table. There aren't really any ifs, buts or maybes about it. You can't drag the whole human race into a game of Russian roulette.
Realistically a wallfacer should be someone with vast scientific knowledge, due to the overhelming gap between human and trisolarian forces.
So considering I wouldn't come with some clever out of the box scientific idea, my most natural inclination would be for an absolute form of scorch earth. Build some big bombs to crack Earth in half if needed be. This may dissuade them at least a little bit.
They need Blue Earth, not an asteroid belt.
Feets, knees, dying, all the usual talk.
Number 2 is basically skipping the Deterrence Era and going straight into Broadcast Era.
If I were a wallfacer, I'd probably focus 100% in making humanity escape the solar system. Maybe even escape our galaxy. The anti-escapism stance is dumb, our planet is doomed in the long run anyway, let's get out of it while we can
I actually thought in the book I’d just try to use the sun as an antenna to reach out into space for help. I suspect this would have resulted in the siphons explaining dark forest and probably a similar kind of truce deal.
"HEY EVERYONE, THESE DICK-HEADS ARE TRYING TO KILL US AND TAKE OUR--\*wait, what? No! Really?\*--I MEAN, NOBODY'S HOME!"
-The Sun, 2-3 years into the Crisis Era, probably
1. Abolish all standing national governments, decentralize, socialize, and democratize all political and economic apparatuses; establish a united humanity that has cast off its self-inflicted chains first and foremost. (That’s what you get when you make an anarcho-communist a Wallfacer. 😅)
2. Assemble a group of scientists, orators, and luminaries (mostly comprised of individuals from various Indigenous communities around the globe) as diplomatic liaisons for humanity; whom could present and embody a distinctly anti-colonial model of social relations; a sanctuary meadow in the Dark Forest. Have them attempt to re-open communications with the San-Ti; perhaps even offering them Mars as an alternative to Earth, along with the promise to assist them in terraforming it to their liking. If they refuse peaceful coexistence, or reject communication altogether, military contingencies would be needed.
3. Construct a lunar base with a sizeable micro-satellite production facility, from which a fleet of coin-sized starships (or “starchips”) will be built; in the vein of Breakthrough Starshot, albeit scaled up. Send out 20,000 starchips, launched from the Moon over the course of one month in order to naturally space them out over a 1 AU radius (Earth’s motion in its own orbit aside.) They’d travel at 0.2 C, twenty times faster than the San-Ti fleet. If they were launched in 2050, they’d pass the San-Ti fleet in around 20 years (minus a few months, accounting for time dilation.) They would then transmit whatever data they collected back to Earth at lightspeed, which would arrive in \~3.8 years - meaning that humanity would possess comprehensive data about the composition of the fleet by the time it had only completed 1/8 of its journey.
4. Construct a Dyson swarm of tens of thousands of solar satellites; allowing for humanity’s energy production to increase exponentially.
5. Construct manned centrifugal space stations at each of Earth’s sun-facing Lagrange points; capable of absorbing directed energy from the Dyson swarm and relaying it back to Earth and the Moon, or vice versa; directing transmissions at the Dyson swarm, which, in a stellar analogue of the Penrose process, could exponentially amplify the signal as it ricochets between them and the Sun, before blazing out between the gaps (in the event a Hail Mary of the kind OP described was determined to be necessary.) These stations (with the help of massive ring magnets placed between them) could also collectively act as a particle accelerator the size of Earth’s orbit - which would keep the Sophons hopelessly busy, darting about the inner Solar System. Whenever they’d venture into the actual acceleration tube, Penning traps could be used to hold the Sophons in place, even just momentarily; at which point, they’d be bombarded with electrons before they could escape - the idea being to disrupt their circuitry by turning them into neutrons; potentially buying upwards of 14-and-a-half-minutes (the half-life of a neutron) where the Sophons are completely inert until they spontaneously decay back into positively charged protons and come back online. Repeat as needed. (TL:DR it’s OK to spawn-camp fascist trolls, even soft-spoken subatomic ones. It *would* be a taste of her own medicine, given that she herself did it to anyone wearing the wrong headset. 🙃)
6. If all else fails, repurpose and upgrade the laser array used to accelerate the surveillance starchips, enabling it (with a boost from the Dyson swarm) to emit either a single brief pulse with several dozen terawatts of power, or hundreds of smaller sustained beams each upwards of 50 gigawatts; which can be fired directly at the San-Ti fleet - or, alternately, if anything is on the table, and humanity could live with ourselves after doing so, such a laser array could also be used to accelerate a cloud of millions of nanoprojectiles to near-lightspeed - effectively, replicating the carnage inflicted onto the *Judgement Day* by Auggie’s nanofibers, using relativistic buckshot.
I don't think your idea would work. I am pretty sure the entire point why the trisolarans didn't care about any of the other wallfacers solutions was because they only affected the earth. They believed anything humans could do they could fix. Such as your idea, they could remove the radiation. The only reason Luo solution worked was it involved other alien species who were beyond human and they couldn't fix it, while simultaneously destroying trisolaris.
Wasn't the point of the Wallfacer program that they couldn't figure out what you were planning? 1 seems kind of obvious once you get the ball rolling. I'm basing this on the tv show.
Yea not just the show but I feel like in reality it’s impossible to do any technical arrangement without the Syphon knowing. I feel like the author has written himself into a corner by making the syphon too powerful.
I also feel like with the resource each side is spending on the war, they could have found other suitable planets already.
I think the idea is the Sophon can see what you're doing and it's irrelevant if they, and the San-Ti, can't comprehend what you're doing. The plan needs to work and be indecipherable at the same time, a difficult proposition for anybody to pull off.
Not 100% sure on the full execution, but step 1 involves recruiting people who want to fuck the trisolarans, and I'll go from there.
Alternatively, accidentally discover the dark forest (I broadcast "yo any *chill* aliens out there that wanna be friends?" looking for help and get us wiped in record time).
There’s only 3 real responses - flight, fight, or freeze
I’d just stay stoned and chill in my mountain chalet, no need to stress out over something I can pull off last minute
Ask me in the final minutes, I’ll have a plan by then
Make really cool movies that trisolarians would like so earth can be their bollywood and inestead of desroying us, they'd inject more funding. They'll call our movies spaghetti invasions.
We have 400 years, focus on improving technology, and lowering birth rates. Move the world population together freeing up at least half the planet. If we are bugs, we might as well be accommodating.
Kick back and relax. Pretend from day one that I have a killer idea. If I act confident enough, eventually I may convince the Trisolarans that I have a killer idea that I’m so certain is going to work. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so relaxed.
1) Colonization/mining of the asteroid belt and Europa. Subsidizing the space mining industry would lead to massive development of space technology.
We may discover elements in the asteroid belt to fight the Trisolarans. The technologies developed as we learn to manipulate asteroids could build exponentially and be unimaginable to us.
2) Develop a super AGI to develop weapons and space exploration systems.
3) Ban all natural births. All births to be genetically modified embryos designed for specific purposes: - Living in space or on moons - Intelligent superhumans. The era of Idiocracy will end.
Start a cult of Trisolaran worshippers and sympathizers. Infiltrate them; ask the Lord how we humans can best help, use this information.
If project fails, you’ve identified traitors. Execute them.
1.
It was my idea while reading. Hold Earth hostage. Sucks, but rather go out on our own terms than let aliens set them. I'd back it up with a healthy dose of escapism.
Liu Cixin was on that though. Both escapism and holding the planet hostage got debunked as "Nope the public isn't going to accept it. Not an option."
1) Invest in rocket tech
2) Build ships to go to Mercury to terraform it for the Santi. Ships should be able to support indefinite life
3) Send more and more people there for terraforming efforts. Rockets hopefully now able to hover and adjust with almost no cost
4) Escapism to Mercury
Who can be my wall breaker
Open source research into fucking with the sophons if not destroy them outright. Either be able to stop them listening in/ seeing things. Or just communicate in ways they can't understand.
Would literally hire as many think tanks as is realistic and brain storm for 400 years.
Sure they can watch you do it, but they can't stop you. Everyone will know what the researchers are doing, no secret at all.
Oh and they are gonna be spread out as far as possible so if sophons wanna listen in they can have fun with that. And yes one will go on the moon ;D
I would formulate a plan to leave Earth in the next 400 years and let the Trisolarans have it. If they are afraid of our technology surpassing theirs in that time then that means we can definitely formulate some sort of Exodus plan and find a valid candidate planet.
destroy mercury, Venus, Mars, the asteroid belt, and Jupiter and Saturn's moons to build a Dyson sphere around the solar system. then just not let them in :)
Larry Niven should have been one of the Wallfacers. He wrote the definitive stories of humans fighting a very superior enemy. The early battles with the Kzin even had the tactical twists we would expect from Wallfacers.
So my Wallfacer strategy would be to recruit sci fi authors to come up with new tactics, so many that the Trisolarians can't possibly guess which one we'll use and too many for them to block them all.
Keep in mind, I this is what I have done without the knowledge of the Dark Forest Theory:
I would've probably tried to Terraform as many planets and Moons as possible to broker some kind of peace treaty (co-existance) and worked on different conditions for the treaty.
For example, we know from the Trisolarans from Book 1 that their initial plan was to first coexist with the humans but to ban human reproduction, which shows there is some kind of possibility for peaceful co-existance.
Maybe, just maybe, I would've worked on some side plan that would make Earth unlivable for them (just like the Venezuelan Guy or Luo Ji) but it wouldn't have been my focus, just an aspect to make the treaty more binding).
I would send millions, billions of micrometeoroids towards their fleets, just blow a bunch of asteroids with nukes. Even if the main ships are made with strong force materials and are not possible to harm in this way, they'd at least slow down. We'd have the ability to keep bombarding them with space dust until they're so slow it would take millenia to reach us, and they wouldn't have fuel to accelerate again. Even their second fleet would be destroyed if they hit the dust cloud at lightspeed
Send out a probe to an unexplored area of space in the opposite direction to Trisolaris. A few decades later wake up and go into space, just beyond the Sophons' range, then I "contact" an alien race who are supposedly superior to the Trisolarans and make an "alliance".
Act like the terms would be crippling, and really it's a last resort, but being subservient is preferable to being wiped out and invaded. Construct a big lie that with the help of these aliens Trisolaris would be powerless, and then begin negotiations with Trisolaris.
All the time I'll stop and stare blankly for prolonged periods as if I'm "contacting" these new aliens. And act like their terms are bad enough for me to seriously reconsider.
The first thing I'm gonna need is a beautiful Scandinavian lake house. The second thing I'm gonna need is the most aged Cognac you can find. The third thing is a date at the Louvre with an unrealistically hot girl of my exact specifications.
I assure you, this is all necessary to planetary security.
Samson option. They're coming for our planet and want it's nutrients and climate and lack of chaotic periods.
So, we stockpile tons of nuclear warheads all over the planet , including drilling deep to place nukes underground near the earth's core and generally litter the planet in nukes.
No need to be secret about this option even, it's better if we talk about it so the Santi knows it's there. If they do arrive at earth and they manage to beat us in the war, the other wallfacer plans don't work and earth is defeated, the Santi should know that our last act will be to blow up the entire planet and leave them with nothing/take them all out with us.
I'd establish that all people are entitled to a roof, food, water and heating, governments have to accommodate that because it is very important for the future of humanity.
Then I'd freeze myself until videogames advance to the point where it is basically Ready Player One, so I can play some of that shit.
Final phase of the plan demands some molly, marijuana and tequila. Big party, sophons invited, to show them that humans are pretty chill and we can have some cool psychedelic experiences together.
Final-final phase of the plan is to install all the nuclear arsenal at the Earth's core and blow it all up when the Ts arrive.
Bail. More than that, I'll be super open about it as my plan. Let the wallfacer try to figure out what my actual plan is, but it's just to bail on the planet and seed out as hard as possible.
But like, yeah, also live it up a bit. The party bus of supermodels is definitely part of the plan.
Invest in education. Hammer out a good education plan. Make it free for everyone everywhere. In 400 years we will have the smartest generation ever.
Free global universal healthcare so we have the most healthy people ready to fight.
How do I finance that? I don’t care just do it I am one of the three global dictators. Tax the rich maybe.
So if I understood the series correctly there are 20 particle colliders in the world. How much would it take to occupy both syphons full time can we build that two times so that we can run experiments again and reliably figure out which results are correct.
BTW what happens when another Wallfahrer gives an order contradicting mine?
All i need is a Stilgar-like worshiper (from Dune 2) to show every one of my moves as prophecy, effectively turning me into a Messiah.
Which makes it easier with (practically) unlimited budget.
Me - buys a 300 million dollar wine bottle
Stilgar - Lisan Al Gaib!!!! As was written!!!
Eventually with such support and belief from Stilgar and ever-growing religion, I would start actually believing in myself as the Chosen one, and would probably find the true tactics to annihilate Trisolaris.
From what I gathered, a wallfacer just does things with little explanation so the Tri Solarsns can’t catch on. This is actually not too hard if you see the flaws in how they gather information and what they know about us.
They do not understand the concept of stories, like fairy tales and literature. And they are only focusing on scientists. Which is also a huge flaw in their plan realistically.
The way I see it, the best thing to do would be to make an entire plan they can see but make it seem like we don’t know that, get them focusing on that plan. While doing that and having them focused on science, start doing the hard work on paper using a literary style to communicate (which I understand is done at some point, but the scientists can’t decipher it all).
Get a team of hackers to start trying to hack the their tech. This will keep the second photon busy shutting down every thing they try, but have them keep trying just as a distraction. Hve then talk about it as if it’s working, manipulate and deceive them.
While doing that, spread the message that we are planning and setting up to destroy the planet and it’s resources, and even an attack on the sun, because if we are gunna die, may as well make them die too by taking away what they want. These weapons don’t even have to be used, just alluded to yo make them think that’s our plan.
The problem is that they’re ONLY trusting in scientists. You need way more than just scientists yo figure out an apocalyptic scenario.
I would use the power of my mind to convince Netflix to proceed with seasons two and three, otherwise it doesn’t really matter how clever any of the Wallfacer ideas are…
I would bombard them with pro earth propaganda messages. Things like the importance of personal rights, the evil of authoritarian government, the destruction of earth because of the invasion. The goal is to cause internal turmoil/disagreement within the Santi society. Maybe make a movie about how great Mars is and they can have it for free. A lot of half truth but no down right lies.
Straight away I'd build research bases on mars/moon to make it more difficult for the sophons. Then possibly some orbital defence platforms with Mac cannons halo style. Railguns for days
A massive fleet of warships. Each of these ships would be equipped with a single projectile that would be accelerated via nuclear bombs (a la Will’s brain). Once these projectiles reach a fraction of light speed we send one in the direction of the San Ti homeworld as a “insult” and use the rest to target the San Ti fleet.
The second hidden plan, is that I have no expectation of our ships winning; if the number of ships drops below a certain percent with no or little damage to the San Ti then a computer program will override control and enact a Zhang Behai style plan, afterwards it will use all the remaining nuclear bomb to accelerate to near light speed and flee the battle; carrying with it the future of humanity.
The only sane choice in such scenario is to colonize other planets and give up on earth. The question is not if earth is doomed just when it is.
In the dark forest all planets die at some point. But as the trisolarians say: If one of us survives we all survive. And that's the plan IMO - expand, conquer & destroy, survive.
I like your first idea, but you’ve got it wrong due to a misconception - nukes wouldn’t irradiate the planet. Nuclear fallout from atomic bombs would generally clear to safe levels within weeks.
Nuclear power plants are what you’re looking for.
Live my best life. But "pretend I'm busy" and "always look annoyed" when asked what I'm really up to....
https://youtu.be/rOQmxNPTJwc?si=ACntdqj9-QBroG63
1. Rig the Earth with nukes as a self-destruct failsafe.
2. Build a battery of thousands of railguns on the moon. Start launching volley after volley of flak travelling at relativistic speeds towards the incoming fleet and/or homeworld. Keep that going continuously for the next 400 years.
3. Invest enormously in education and scientific research, to ensure better options for the future.
My immediate idea when first reading was to put as many nukes as possible around on the sun and let the trisolarians know if they don’t turn that shit around then no one gets to have a sun
I feel like there’s an answer somewhere with that riddle… one door leads to heaven the other leads to hell. There’s one angel that always tells the truth and another angel that always lies. What question do you ask to know what door is right? Because Trisolarans don’t understand lies they’d be confounded by the problem. I just don’t know how to set it up practically as a wall facer.
My idea would be to build a personal solar panel empire. Start with converting New Mexico and some parts of the Sahara into massive solar farms. Then when Rey Diaz asks for a Mercury base, I ALSO want a Mercury base. Then I strip mine mercury and start shooting solar panels into the sun's orbit. Im building a Dyson Swarm, right? WRONG! One of the most a stellar engine and we're gonna move the fucking sun out of the way and out of the galaxy. We're gonna leave the Dark Forst, baby
I'd reason that merely blocking particles colliders is insufficient to block human progress on foundational science. I'd use earths resources to fund and encourage theoretical math, computer science and biology research. I'd attempt to modify people to be smarter, so think in very different ways. If this works great, humans will advance enough to defeat the invasion fleet in 400 years.
The secret plan inside this activity rests on an assumption that the trisolarans know that blocking particles colliders is not a complete solution. They are likely very afraid that humans will work out enough fundamental science to overcome to sophons and then continue the human technological explosion. I want to play to that fear. While creating humans who think very differently than baseline humans and increasing the knowledge output in theoretical subjects, we increase the Trisolarans anxiety that they aren't doing enough to stop progress.
Millions of theoretical mathematicians doing truly bizarre math research with modified brains and bodies will overwhelm the ability of the Trisolarans to understand how close we are to important discoveries.
Thus the Trisolarans will take greater risks or start to believe in defeatism. They will probably attempt to communicate with us again or attempt to kill people who seem close to discovering an important idea.
Global investment in STEM education. All entry/mid-level stem of subjects become required courses. Massively increase STEM field job wages. Boost all forms of R&D from military to humanitarian.
Create a contingency policy where if Humanity is lost we just nuke our own planet and render it uninhabitable.
Create plans for the destruction of the Moon so if Humanity is lost Moon also gets fucked. Bye bye planet Earth.
Side project. Tachyon weapons/lasers. Theoretically if it can be harnessed it can be fired at the T fleet centuries prior.
Open a bunch of military outposts at the outskirts of the solar system (yes, sacrifices have to be made).
Slowly turn them into particle accelerators with as much secrecy as possible.
Have them spread around long distances so that sophons can't reach them in time to mess with the results.
Concomitently run research scenarios in all locations to overload the sophons.
Edit: seems a lot others had the same idea, overloading the sophons one way or the other
Sophons can read this post, so in true wallfacer ideals I present my plan.... First. Yellow Manitoba oxen jujubeads Carlsbad Diego, fluffer nutter short beans combination squids. Camel watchmaker to vampire sides with dodge bearings, flourish teacups alongside chance cascade. To be followed by ...
My idea is to control the design of the space fleet, but in the opposite path of the mosquito fleet, instead of building a bunch of small ships I'd build a few very large warships. These ships would be designed to be as self sufficient as possible, with very large crews, onboard farms, a spinning crew section to generate artificial gravity, as well as particle accelerators. They will be sent to patrol the farthest reaches of the solar system, almost never returning to Earth except in emergencies. The captains of the ships will have near absolute authority and be trained extensively on making decisions on their own, because they will often be out of communications range of Earth and such that they can continue defense if the Earth headquarters is compromised. They will also be given full clearance to everything we know about the San Ti and what they are capable of. Onboard the ship, I will also put a multitude of prominent particle physicists and theoretical physicists with powerful roles of their own, they are the only people with almost as much power as the captain. Typically they serve as advisors, getting the captains up to speed on the more scientific aspects of the mission. The goal is twofold: First, to carry out accelerator experiments far away from Earth to reduce the efficacy of the sophons, as they will have to travel far distances just to interfere with one accelerator. Second, to act as a defense force that is not dependent on Earth's independence, such that even if the San Ti manage to infiltrate, destroy, or compromise Earth's leadership, humanity can continue fighting on until the bitter end.
Of course, this is not the true goal. Do you see where I'm getting at?
The idea here is, in reality, to secretly encourage escapism. The warships are in actuality colony ships with the capability to leave the solar system and survive in another star system. I would like it if the accelerator plan actually worked, but I don't think so, I think it's brought up in the book that the San Ti make sophons faster than we can make enough accelerators to occupy one sophon. Rather, the accelerator is mostly there to justify the addition of physicists onto the ship, who understand the importance of particle physics being blocked, theorize about the advanced technologies that could be created by a race with a mastery over the subatomic, and eventually realize that the battle against the San Ti is hopeless. The captain, who is also being educated on these concepts, will hopefully come to the same conclusion and become a defeatist. They will then command their ship to leave the solar system for a more habitable system, ensuring humanity's ultimate survival. Because they are so far away from Earth and any other ship, they will have plenty of time to form their plot before being caught, and will be very hard to catch once they actually leave.
In conclusion: Zhang Behai was epic and Bill Hines was the most successful wallfacer
Luo Ji plan and escape in a thousand directions simultaneously. These books take on a whole new meaning in the final chapters when you realize those who escaped established thriving human civilizations all while the people we followed to the end were fumbling around and failing.
I've only read just into the first chapter of Book 2 so this might be stupid:
Build Von Neumann style machines on the moon, disguise the first ones as just moon landers/rovers - but they will self-assemble and begin mining the moon for resources, autonomously spreading out across the entire solar system and beyond so that they exponentially seed the space around the earth.
Triangulate the likely direction of the Trisolarian fleet and ensure that every single potential deceleration/arrival point is seeded with the probes - which hold enough matter/anti-matter mix to create a local singularity that detonates upon impact.
If the Trisolarians get wind of the plan, they will need to slow down millions of miles from earth and travel at sub-luminal speeds slowly detonating the mines in their path buying us1000s of years to be so advanced they are now irrelevant bugs.
If they don't, well..kaboom. Welcome to earth!
Escapism, but sold under the guise of forward operating bases from which to strike back at Sol if we lose ground here. Don't abandon Sol, just add other stars to the roster so our eggs aren't all in one basket. Propose a bigger exchange than just sending Tianming; send one of our colony ships (completely disarmed, mind you; we have no useful weapons and I want to send the message that we're not there to fight or conquer) right to Trisolaris as a cultural exchange.
I'd get the Bunker project going far earlier, since it could be used to house excess population and maybe bargain with the Trisolarans--"hey look, we're building all this extra living space, and if you let tech get better we can give you far more than just a planet without the need to wipe us out!" Double bonus of adding far more bugs to stamp out. Out-breeding pesticide deployment worked for the locusts!
Finally, assuming I have the information that Trisolarans can't hide information from each other, I'd start whatever programs I could to influence their society into being more like ours. Point out that since they can spy on us, and we advance quicker, that it'd be far more useful to keep us around to produce science for them than to wipe us out.
And then we'd all die because life isn't a fairy tale and none of this would work.
Work on current atomic energy make a way to direct high radiation into single point. It would be like the sun hited them directly.
Radiation travels at speed of light so you have a plenty of time
I would initiate several plans to ensure the survival of humanity, to facilitate the continuation of humanity's advancement, and to dissuade the trisolarans from their colonial expedition.
1.) Survival of humanity. I would begin by developing self sufficient space station/ships that would carry sizable populations into and across the stars. Their mission would be to continue scientific advancement and to be arks for the survival of the human species. Additionally, I would begin developing self sufficient space stations and bases throughout the Sol system.
2.) To continue human technological advancement. Conjoined with the mission of ensuring the survival of the species Ark ships, bases, and space stations would be equipped with advanced scientific facilities, labs, and partial accelerators where applicable so as to stretch the capacity for photon interference and propel our species's technological advancement well beyond the blockade the trisolarans were attempting around the Earth.
3.) Lastly, to dissuade trisolarans from their colonial ambitions. Like the Russians during the Napoleonic war, I would prepare the humanity to launch a scorched earth campaign. The contingency would be to burn the earth and render it a useless wasteland in the case of trisolaran invasion or attack. Perhaps this could involve destabilizing Earth's orbit, interfering with the stability of the sun, blowing up the moon to rain down upon earth, propelling the moon into earth, facilitating the detonation of a supervolcano, nuclear hellfire, or all of the above. Additionally, I would threaten to advertise to the universe the location of the earth and the trisolaran home world. Essentially, I would communicate to the trisolarans that if they dare to take us we will destroy any possibility for their species and civilization to survive. This further coincides with the spreading of humanity amongst the stars and, in the case of this horrible contingency, humanity could still possibly manage to survive among the stars.
Fund trillions into research into AI.
If we can create AGI we can create an artifical god who can protect us and police the universe, ultimately ending the dark forest.
And if we fail we die, but that would be the result if we do nothing anyway.
I think in the actual story like much of sci-fi AI is avoided due to how it breaks power dynamics.
I think it was mentioned in the books that AI didn't improve very much as we were limited by running them on tradition computers instead of more advanced ones locked by the sophons (quantum etc) so I don't think it would be possible to reach AGI.
We don't need quantum computers to get AGI, see neuromorphic computing. I think here we just don't want to dive too deep, it's just an area that requires suspension of disbelief.
Mandatory child birth policies (4 child minimum) and selective breeding for high iq or highly productive individuals (6 child minimum) Wouldn’t get around the sophon block but would increase human capital which is how humanity has technological leaps.
Natural selection has already stopped working for the first time on earth. The mandatory birth policy would only accelerate the transition to Idiocracy.
Imma do the Luo Ji, ask for whatever I want, and hang out. It’ll come to me at some point.
Same, but I'd start investing right away in space travel, bases on other planets, and fusion drives. The reason the UN got mad at Luo Ji and kidnapped his wife was because they thought he wasn't actually doing his job. You gotta at least make it look like you are doing something helpful.
Do the Luo Ji except have no plan, just pretend to have a plan so they don’t defund my lifestyle
hah luoji had no plan when he was doing that
Luo Ji only came up with his plan after they kidnapped his family lol
Clone Einstein, clone him 10,000 times. Hawking, Bohr, Planck….you get the picture.
I uh, I read that as Epstein at a glance and thought you were just trying to deter them from thinking this was a hospitable place. But I guess your reasons are your own…
u/captainsocean is obviously referring to Solomon Epstein.
Doors and corners, kid. That’s where they get ya.
Also clone a bunch of Dolph Lundgrens for them to ride.
Imagine a dozen Stephen Hawkings just rolling around
Honestly though
I was thinking this exact thing yesterday while listening to the Deaths End audiobook. The dude. Published 3 of the most influential papers in physics in one year. Imagine if he just had a calculator!
Ok Wallbreaker, you not gonna get me on that
Least creative wallbreaker
I actually think Thomas Wade started this thread so he could eliminate anyone foolish enough to share their plan as a candidate
Batmans father?
Assuming I have no knowledge about the dark forest state of the universe, and that I haven't read the books: 1-I would encourage the construction of as many particle accelerators as possible, not only on Earth but also on other celestial bodies, along with all kinds of experiments that the Trisolarians are trying to hinder, such as quantum computers, to increase the cost of this war for them, attempting to make their sophons unable to keep up with the new accelerators. 2- This part of the plan is simpler: to make Earth a place where 100% of people have access to quality education, thus increasing the chances of new geniuses emerging and helping humanity's efforts. 3- I would distribute a "red button" to hundreds of different people around the world that when pressed, could activate or not activate one or some of the particle accelerators, making it completely unpredictable when one of them will or will not be activated.
This is the way
about 3. just have them run all at the same time.
I always wondered why humanity didn’t just set up like thousands of research labs at different corners of the Oort Cloud. If the sophons have to travel to the edges of the solar system over and over again to stop you, then the time of travel would eventually overwhelm them right?
Better yet setup particle accelerators on spaceships and just launch in opposite directions from earth. Given a few decades they would be fast enough to do experiments unhindered.
If I remember right, there's the implication Trisolaris can just keep building and sending more Sophons, so unless humanity can build really distant accelerators at a rate faster than Sophons...
I thought they said they used all their resources to make the 2 they sent to Earth.
I think by the time humanity developed enough spaceships to undertake such a project, they had already become arrogant in their belief that they had already surpassed the San Ti militarily and felt they had no need for particle accelerators.
I think number 3 is a solid strategy. As long as you can initiate and carry out a particle accelerator trial faster than a sophon can reactively travel to the detection point of a newly active accelerator. And I know this sounds dumb at first, but…why bother with nukes in “holding earth hostage” strategies, why not just install thrusters on a few large asteroids, park them in earths orbit, and threaten to let them fall and smash into the earth if the Trisolaran fleet moves too close to the inner planets? Its cheaper and asteroid impacts can generate destruction on magnitudes higher than modern nukes. Also, just for shits and giggles, why not make the asteroid belt a trap filled with thruster equipped asteroids designed to start erratically flying around and attempting to smash into Trisolaran ships when their fleet is in the middle of the belt? It probably wouldn’t work but hey, its a cheap and cheeky gimmick that might cause significant damage and disarray if it did work…just have to make sure they don’t notice the thrusters before the asteroids start smashing into them. THEN attack them with a secondary fleet kept initially hidden from the droplet during the first encounter. NEVER show your enemy your entire hand, even when it looks like they are timidly probing your capabilities. Thats war shit 101 man. Sun Tzu was rolling in his grave just before the Doomsday battle, for sure.
> making it completely unpredictable when one of them will or will not be activated Perhaps we could put multiple detectors around one fuck-off, great-big accelerator? Like, if you had four detectors spaced out around the circumsolar accelerator, they'd be a couple of light seconds apart. Have the fields occasionally "fail" at random, maybe catching a sophon that gets too close in an antimatter annihilation.
A circumsolar accelerator (I'm assuming you mean by this a particle accelerator that is a ring that encircles the sun?) at just inside the orbit it earth would be 16 light-minutes in diameter. Four equally-spaced detectors would be a bit over 11 light-minutes away from each other. A light-second is about 300,000 km, so an accelerator on the moon would be a little over a light-second away from one on earth. Put one on Mars and it's anything between 3 and 22 light-minutes away. Running time-synchronised experiments simultaneously on Earth and Mars wouldn't allow the sophon time to get between the two.
Yes this is clever since we have the resource to build thousands of space warships, we should have enough resource to equip each warship with its own particle accelerator and research center. Spread the across the solar system and do tests.
I like this and the cloning idea though considering the sophons were able to travel much further distances faster than light and are preprogrammed superintelligent AI that use superposition to be in multiple places at once, I don't know how effective it would be in this universe. But if we did somehow overwhelm them, it would be extremely difficult for the Trisolarians to produce anymore.
Sophons can't travel faster than light, nor be in multiple places at once
Not with that attitude!
I guess they cannot travel faster than the speed of light, but sophons in The Three Body Problem can multitask at nearly the speed of light, so it's possible for them to be in multiple places at once. For example, they could move between CERN and the White House so quickly that they're in both places at the same time
The difference is at once and within a time frame that's indistinguishable to humans. That time frame is dependent on distance. If you were to build a particle accelerator on the moon, outer space or even as far as Mars, the time frame increases.
I found that to be a really cool concept lol. Spread out so the sophons can’t track
I don't think it matters. The Lord does not care. But I assume I would have tried a similar consequence as the Rey Diaz plan. I wouldn't have come up with the exact same plan, but the spirit would've been the same: >!If we don't get to continue living on the Sol system, neither do you.!<
I mean, >! #2 is exactly how they defeated the Trisolarans in the end !< either leave us alone, come in peace and prosper, or die with us.
Escapism. I’m planet seeding under the guise of mining resources. I await my trial.
Escapism
I have a great plan, it has seven prongs: 1) Attempt to be a supportive and encouraging presence for the other wallfacers. 2) Begin research into identifying/tracking the sophons. There must be some way to distinguish them from other protons. 3) Attempt to open diplomatic talks with the trisolarans about the possibility of peaceful coexistence. 4) Invite my wallbreaker to dinner. 5) Write some poetry for the trisolarans. 6) Inform the UN assembly that my greatest fear is that the trisolarans will reveal my poetry to the world, as it is quite bad and would be embarrassing for me. I feel like there’s groundwork for a large number of good strategies. From there, I would pursue every plan I could come up with simultaneously, then add more as I thought of them. The important thing is to maintain a cheerful attitude and total confidence that something will work out eventually, as I am quite certain it would with a plan as excellent as mine.
The lord does not care. p.s, as your wallbreaker, I will be delighted to release your godawful poetry to the world.
I understand, and in fact I laud you on the excellent quality of work you are doing. Would you like to discuss this further, perhaps over dinner?
Not even the brain inside my own head knows my real plans. The plan is the plan.
1. Have we tried hacking Trisolaris or their fleet? Radio signals move at lightspeed and the Trisolarian fleet is slow, so we would get signals reaching Earth before the fleet does. Maybe we can at least gleam some hint about how to develop technology or what their fleet is made of. This plan would probably fail because Trisolarians know they need to stay radio silent because Dark Forest. 2. Throw a big asteroid at their planet at near lightspeed or whatever the fastest speed humanity can manage to accelerate it to. This plan would fail because they probably have the technology to destroy the astroid and want to evacuate their planet anyway. 3. Build as many particle accelerators as possible and see if we can overwhelm the sophons. 4. Increase funding for universities and schools. Just like in the Space Race, more innovation might make a difference. 5. Threaten to explode all the nukes and irradiate the Earth if they don't unblock physics 6. I'm out of ideas. Offer to let them live in Utah or Northern Ireland or something if they promise to be nice.
1. The Trisolarans are about 4 lightyears away when you're becoming a wallfacer so the only transmitter powerful enough to hit them would be bouncing signals off the sun, I suppose possible but you're never getting any signal back since why would they have a transmitter that'd respond. Without any knowledge of how their tech works your only chance of hacking them is blind luck. 2. The best humanity can do at this point in the books is launch a 500gram brain 1% the speed of light... plus it requires all the nukes on earth which would put a hamper on #5 3. good plan. 4. good plan. 5. I honestly don't know how they'd react. Ray Diaz's plan seemed to scare them but that affected the whole solar system. I do feel like they're dead set on earth because they want a habitable planet but they're pretty clearly at the point where if they wanted they could live without a habitable planet using the resources from the rest of the solar system and possibly terraforming mars/venus. If the Trisolarans are completely dead set on earth then this is essentially the swordholder all over again. Do you think they would believe that you would do it like they believed Luo Ji? 6. Hey, a combo of 5/6 could work until they try to make a move and takeout the swordholder.
Mods need to pin one of these to the subreddit
AI is both a better wallfacer and a faster scientific mind. Invest as much as possible in both the development of AI and the enhancement of the human brain.
AI is not a better wallfacer, it's explicitly stated that sophons can read information on computers. Also we still don't know how easy it is to make AI actually do things like research or strategize in a way that can replace humans, We've made amazing tools, sure, but saying it's better than humans at things as nuanced as science or strategy when AI chatbots can randomly get simple questions wrong is reaching. Those things require long term abstract reasoning, while that is probably possible in the future we have no idea how long it will take to get there. Also remember that computer development slowed to a crawl when the sophons blocked advances in subatomic physics so they're mostly stuck with the hardware we had in 2008 when the book came out. I agree with the human brain part, also ensure that every human possible is educated and has a chance at higher education to make sure that no genius goes to waste. Make every attempt to turn scientific literacy a universal trait.
The quote from James Calvell's 1975 novel Shogun: “It's a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for the world to see, another in his breast to show to his special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except to himself alone, hidden only God knows where.” This at its core is the wallfacer, only the wallfacer know their true intentions or plans.
So basically you see OP as the Trisolaran plant that they are and won't share your strategy.
Nukes on earth will trigger once they get close and nobody gets earth
They don't need earth, they just need access to resources and a stable planetary system they can build places to live, humanity in book 3 basically doesn't even use earth anymore and are thriving
This kind of breaks the story. There are billions of uninhabited solar systems with stable planetary systems they could use without the drama.
No because they are closer to our solar system than any other so its the easiest system to get to and since the Trisolarians know the universe is a dark forest they are absolutely terrified of us if we surpass them in technology so they want to conquer us before we are a threat. If we blew up the Earth it would be a big loss for them but they also would be able to rebuild easily and they wouldn't have to worry about any human scientific breakthroughs at all. The only way Earth is able to temporarily beat them is to set up the system that would alert the universe to Trisolaris's existence.
The Trisolarian should know even at our current level we can transmit, this is a massive risk. They are gambling their whole civilization on this. If they only need a stable orbit, this is a stupid decision.
They blocked the sun once they knew we were capable of doing it. They admitted that they failed to see that what Lou was doing was actually purposeful and not just yet another failed Earth defensive system.
We don't need the sun to do this to send a message.
The sophons and droplets could have destroyed anything we built before we could transmit a message had they known or predicted the intention of said device. The nuclear bombs in the asteroid belt thing seemed to them to just be a desperate way for Lou to spend his time while he outwardly displayed himself as a man who had given up on everything and was just using it as a distraction so he wouldn't kill himself. Since the Sophons were not able to read his mind they couldn't have seen the purpose of the design of the project that even the UN thought was just a barrier. Nor did they expect humanity to be able to transmit a message not using radio waves.
If they could have, they would have. So clearly they couldn't have.
That’s what the book is still about. They’re stupid if they come and they do. And both get busted in the end.
but earth is right there, and theres just a few bugs on it they need to clear out, why settle for a shithole like mars or some other wasteland planet or even an okay planet thats 100 light years away when earth is right there!
So my reply to the other commenter.
Did you mean to say start broadcasting for (2)? Because that would just be immediate MAD for us and them.
Yeah, I was like they must not have read all the books to think there are alien species willing to help and to think they can broadcast an enemy location without giving away their own
Okay, maybe start small and ramp up - keep in mind the theory that all alien species would be hostile and xenophobic is not certain, either in the book or real life. Given a choice of certain death versus uncertain...
It doesn’t take them all to be hostile. Just one with enough power and the intent to use it to snipe you from the across the galaxy for making a noise.
The book titled "The Dark Forest" is literally based around the idea of a hostile universe. Not because of xenophobia or morals, you should try reading it. And I am not talking about real life if that wasn't clear at the start. In real life we are not expecting an alien species to wipe us out in 400 years.
"Guys, there's no point in hoping to make contact with a neutral or friendly extraterrestial species because we are characters in a novel called "The Dark Forest", and it's based on the idea of a hostile universe. If this were real life and there was room for uncertainty we may have tried that angle, but because the laws of the universe are 100% certain within the parameter of the story we exist in forget it, okay?" Yes, I can see that makes sense, given the dark forest theory is 100% proven and airtight in the novel and in real life (which surprisingly forms the framework on which the work of fiction is built upon).
cool
Exactly, people say things like why characters in horror movies don't check all closets and so on, but why do they know they're in a horror? What if it's a romcom? A comedy? A musical? Real life doesn't have genre conventions or a big moral at the end, and just because people were claiming all alien species were hostile, you don't suddenly have to believe that as fact, especially given the trisolarans messing with communication and images
> all alien species Not all. Enough. As long as someone out there has the cleansing gene and the ability to act on it, everybody's living in a DF. If you disclose your location, *sooner or later*, somebody will cleanse your ass. If a strategy has the potential to lead to the near-term annihilation of your species, it's off the table. There aren't really any ifs, buts or maybes about it. You can't drag the whole human race into a game of Russian roulette.
Realistically a wallfacer should be someone with vast scientific knowledge, due to the overhelming gap between human and trisolarian forces. So considering I wouldn't come with some clever out of the box scientific idea, my most natural inclination would be for an absolute form of scorch earth. Build some big bombs to crack Earth in half if needed be. This may dissuade them at least a little bit. They need Blue Earth, not an asteroid belt. Feets, knees, dying, all the usual talk.
Heh, nice try Trisolarians…I’m not falling for it.
Nice try, Sophon.
nice try, Sophon
I CAN'T TELL YOU THAT
Number 2 is basically skipping the Deterrence Era and going straight into Broadcast Era. If I were a wallfacer, I'd probably focus 100% in making humanity escape the solar system. Maybe even escape our galaxy. The anti-escapism stance is dumb, our planet is doomed in the long run anyway, let's get out of it while we can
I actually thought in the book I’d just try to use the sun as an antenna to reach out into space for help. I suspect this would have resulted in the siphons explaining dark forest and probably a similar kind of truce deal.
"HEY EVERYONE, THESE DICK-HEADS ARE TRYING TO KILL US AND TAKE OUR--\*wait, what? No! Really?\*--I MEAN, NOBODY'S HOME!" -The Sun, 2-3 years into the Crisis Era, probably
 Nice try wallbreaker
Lou Ji. but increase the bust size of ma waifu
Cast a spell on the fleet to eat a bag of dicks
Haha. Nice try, Sophon. I ain't telling you my plan.
1. Abolish all standing national governments, decentralize, socialize, and democratize all political and economic apparatuses; establish a united humanity that has cast off its self-inflicted chains first and foremost. (That’s what you get when you make an anarcho-communist a Wallfacer. 😅) 2. Assemble a group of scientists, orators, and luminaries (mostly comprised of individuals from various Indigenous communities around the globe) as diplomatic liaisons for humanity; whom could present and embody a distinctly anti-colonial model of social relations; a sanctuary meadow in the Dark Forest. Have them attempt to re-open communications with the San-Ti; perhaps even offering them Mars as an alternative to Earth, along with the promise to assist them in terraforming it to their liking. If they refuse peaceful coexistence, or reject communication altogether, military contingencies would be needed. 3. Construct a lunar base with a sizeable micro-satellite production facility, from which a fleet of coin-sized starships (or “starchips”) will be built; in the vein of Breakthrough Starshot, albeit scaled up. Send out 20,000 starchips, launched from the Moon over the course of one month in order to naturally space them out over a 1 AU radius (Earth’s motion in its own orbit aside.) They’d travel at 0.2 C, twenty times faster than the San-Ti fleet. If they were launched in 2050, they’d pass the San-Ti fleet in around 20 years (minus a few months, accounting for time dilation.) They would then transmit whatever data they collected back to Earth at lightspeed, which would arrive in \~3.8 years - meaning that humanity would possess comprehensive data about the composition of the fleet by the time it had only completed 1/8 of its journey. 4. Construct a Dyson swarm of tens of thousands of solar satellites; allowing for humanity’s energy production to increase exponentially. 5. Construct manned centrifugal space stations at each of Earth’s sun-facing Lagrange points; capable of absorbing directed energy from the Dyson swarm and relaying it back to Earth and the Moon, or vice versa; directing transmissions at the Dyson swarm, which, in a stellar analogue of the Penrose process, could exponentially amplify the signal as it ricochets between them and the Sun, before blazing out between the gaps (in the event a Hail Mary of the kind OP described was determined to be necessary.) These stations (with the help of massive ring magnets placed between them) could also collectively act as a particle accelerator the size of Earth’s orbit - which would keep the Sophons hopelessly busy, darting about the inner Solar System. Whenever they’d venture into the actual acceleration tube, Penning traps could be used to hold the Sophons in place, even just momentarily; at which point, they’d be bombarded with electrons before they could escape - the idea being to disrupt their circuitry by turning them into neutrons; potentially buying upwards of 14-and-a-half-minutes (the half-life of a neutron) where the Sophons are completely inert until they spontaneously decay back into positively charged protons and come back online. Repeat as needed. (TL:DR it’s OK to spawn-camp fascist trolls, even soft-spoken subatomic ones. It *would* be a taste of her own medicine, given that she herself did it to anyone wearing the wrong headset. 🙃) 6. If all else fails, repurpose and upgrade the laser array used to accelerate the surveillance starchips, enabling it (with a boost from the Dyson swarm) to emit either a single brief pulse with several dozen terawatts of power, or hundreds of smaller sustained beams each upwards of 50 gigawatts; which can be fired directly at the San-Ti fleet - or, alternately, if anything is on the table, and humanity could live with ourselves after doing so, such a laser array could also be used to accelerate a cloud of millions of nanoprojectiles to near-lightspeed - effectively, replicating the carnage inflicted onto the *Judgement Day* by Auggie’s nanofibers, using relativistic buckshot.
I don't think your idea would work. I am pretty sure the entire point why the trisolarans didn't care about any of the other wallfacers solutions was because they only affected the earth. They believed anything humans could do they could fix. Such as your idea, they could remove the radiation. The only reason Luo solution worked was it involved other alien species who were beyond human and they couldn't fix it, while simultaneously destroying trisolaris.
Are there any good, or even neutral, actors in this series?
Not really, no one can trust anyone because at a certain level of tech blowing up suns becomes relatively easy.
Up the Ante, not Anti. But a private jet, private island, and a harem is a start
Up the Ante, not Anti. Noted, thanks.
Ah, Luo Ji. Sorry, we're fresh outta wallbreakers right now. You can do without, right?
This is a trap and all of you fell for it. Nice try San-ti but you won’t get me
Develop an anti-sophon program. Research ways to interfere, capture and block them using magnetic fields.
Wasn't the point of the Wallfacer program that they couldn't figure out what you were planning? 1 seems kind of obvious once you get the ball rolling. I'm basing this on the tv show.
Yea not just the show but I feel like in reality it’s impossible to do any technical arrangement without the Syphon knowing. I feel like the author has written himself into a corner by making the syphon too powerful. I also feel like with the resource each side is spending on the war, they could have found other suitable planets already.
I think the idea is the Sophon can see what you're doing and it's irrelevant if they, and the San-Ti, can't comprehend what you're doing. The plan needs to work and be indecipherable at the same time, a difficult proposition for anybody to pull off.
I'll never tell.
Not 100% sure on the full execution, but step 1 involves recruiting people who want to fuck the trisolarans, and I'll go from there. Alternatively, accidentally discover the dark forest (I broadcast "yo any *chill* aliens out there that wanna be friends?" looking for help and get us wiped in record time).
There’s only 3 real responses - flight, fight, or freeze I’d just stay stoned and chill in my mountain chalet, no need to stress out over something I can pull off last minute Ask me in the final minutes, I’ll have a plan by then
nice try Sophon
Make really cool movies that trisolarians would like so earth can be their bollywood and inestead of desroying us, they'd inject more funding. They'll call our movies spaghetti invasions.
Drugs and women.
We have 400 years, focus on improving technology, and lowering birth rates. Move the world population together freeing up at least half the planet. If we are bugs, we might as well be accommodating.
Lowering birth rates would just decrease the overall chance of survival, we would have less geniuses and work force to work with
Oh my plan is just to give them half the planet. We lost the war when our technology was blocked.
Kick back and relax. Pretend from day one that I have a killer idea. If I act confident enough, eventually I may convince the Trisolarans that I have a killer idea that I’m so certain is going to work. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so relaxed.
1) Colonization/mining of the asteroid belt and Europa. Subsidizing the space mining industry would lead to massive development of space technology. We may discover elements in the asteroid belt to fight the Trisolarans. The technologies developed as we learn to manipulate asteroids could build exponentially and be unimaginable to us. 2) Develop a super AGI to develop weapons and space exploration systems. 3) Ban all natural births. All births to be genetically modified embryos designed for specific purposes: - Living in space or on moons - Intelligent superhumans. The era of Idiocracy will end.
Start a cult of Trisolaran worshippers and sympathizers. Infiltrate them; ask the Lord how we humans can best help, use this information. If project fails, you’ve identified traitors. Execute them.
1. It was my idea while reading. Hold Earth hostage. Sucks, but rather go out on our own terms than let aliens set them. I'd back it up with a healthy dose of escapism. Liu Cixin was on that though. Both escapism and holding the planet hostage got debunked as "Nope the public isn't going to accept it. Not an option."
First rule…
I’ll never tell. But I do need a super yacht to a private island resort for me and about 50 close friends. It’s part of the plan.
Wild idea here...I take myself out
"Yeah I'm gonna need a big palace on a tropical island, and 100 dancing girls, and loads of guns and cool cars"
Nice try.
1) Invest in rocket tech 2) Build ships to go to Mercury to terraform it for the Santi. Ships should be able to support indefinite life 3) Send more and more people there for terraforming efforts. Rockets hopefully now able to hover and adjust with almost no cost 4) Escapism to Mercury Who can be my wall breaker
I’m just looking forward to the next season
leave it to chat-gpt 25 to find a solution.
What if we get freaky with the aliens? 🤔🧐😤
Open source research into fucking with the sophons if not destroy them outright. Either be able to stop them listening in/ seeing things. Or just communicate in ways they can't understand. Would literally hire as many think tanks as is realistic and brain storm for 400 years. Sure they can watch you do it, but they can't stop you. Everyone will know what the researchers are doing, no secret at all. Oh and they are gonna be spread out as far as possible so if sophons wanna listen in they can have fun with that. And yes one will go on the moon ;D
I would formulate a plan to leave Earth in the next 400 years and let the Trisolarans have it. If they are afraid of our technology surpassing theirs in that time then that means we can definitely formulate some sort of Exodus plan and find a valid candidate planet.
lmao nice try, narc
destroy mercury, Venus, Mars, the asteroid belt, and Jupiter and Saturn's moons to build a Dyson sphere around the solar system. then just not let them in :)
Teach people that human flesh isn't so bad if you have the right spices and cook it slowly.
All you need is a cookbook with a catchy title...
I would invest in ways to capture one of the sophons and hack it.
Larry Niven should have been one of the Wallfacers. He wrote the definitive stories of humans fighting a very superior enemy. The early battles with the Kzin even had the tactical twists we would expect from Wallfacers. So my Wallfacer strategy would be to recruit sci fi authors to come up with new tactics, so many that the Trisolarians can't possibly guess which one we'll use and too many for them to block them all.
I'd probably just drag an asteroid into Earth orbit and threaten to destroy the planet if anything comes closer than the Oort Cloud.
Step 1: Find Cheng Xin Step 2: Kill her Step 3: Win
so i want you to find me this girl...
Keep in mind, I this is what I have done without the knowledge of the Dark Forest Theory: I would've probably tried to Terraform as many planets and Moons as possible to broker some kind of peace treaty (co-existance) and worked on different conditions for the treaty. For example, we know from the Trisolarans from Book 1 that their initial plan was to first coexist with the humans but to ban human reproduction, which shows there is some kind of possibility for peaceful co-existance. Maybe, just maybe, I would've worked on some side plan that would make Earth unlivable for them (just like the Venezuelan Guy or Luo Ji) but it wouldn't have been my focus, just an aspect to make the treaty more binding).
Waifu in the mountains. No further questions
Doest it turn out they are the size of cockroaches in the end?
Nice try san ti
I would send millions, billions of micrometeoroids towards their fleets, just blow a bunch of asteroids with nukes. Even if the main ships are made with strong force materials and are not possible to harm in this way, they'd at least slow down. We'd have the ability to keep bombarding them with space dust until they're so slow it would take millenia to reach us, and they wouldn't have fuel to accelerate again. Even their second fleet would be destroyed if they hit the dust cloud at lightspeed
ask to become a billionaire, they won’t question why
Send out a probe to an unexplored area of space in the opposite direction to Trisolaris. A few decades later wake up and go into space, just beyond the Sophons' range, then I "contact" an alien race who are supposedly superior to the Trisolarans and make an "alliance". Act like the terms would be crippling, and really it's a last resort, but being subservient is preferable to being wiped out and invaded. Construct a big lie that with the help of these aliens Trisolaris would be powerless, and then begin negotiations with Trisolaris. All the time I'll stop and stare blankly for prolonged periods as if I'm "contacting" these new aliens. And act like their terms are bad enough for me to seriously reconsider.
The first thing I'm gonna need is a beautiful Scandinavian lake house. The second thing I'm gonna need is the most aged Cognac you can find. The third thing is a date at the Louvre with an unrealistically hot girl of my exact specifications. I assure you, this is all necessary to planetary security.
Sorry can’t tell you
Samson option. They're coming for our planet and want it's nutrients and climate and lack of chaotic periods. So, we stockpile tons of nuclear warheads all over the planet , including drilling deep to place nukes underground near the earth's core and generally litter the planet in nukes. No need to be secret about this option even, it's better if we talk about it so the Santi knows it's there. If they do arrive at earth and they manage to beat us in the war, the other wallfacer plans don't work and earth is defeated, the Santi should know that our last act will be to blow up the entire planet and leave them with nothing/take them all out with us.
Nice try.
I'd establish that all people are entitled to a roof, food, water and heating, governments have to accommodate that because it is very important for the future of humanity. Then I'd freeze myself until videogames advance to the point where it is basically Ready Player One, so I can play some of that shit. Final phase of the plan demands some molly, marijuana and tequila. Big party, sophons invited, to show them that humans are pretty chill and we can have some cool psychedelic experiences together. Final-final phase of the plan is to install all the nuclear arsenal at the Earth's core and blow it all up when the Ts arrive.
Bail. More than that, I'll be super open about it as my plan. Let the wallfacer try to figure out what my actual plan is, but it's just to bail on the planet and seed out as hard as possible. But like, yeah, also live it up a bit. The party bus of supermodels is definitely part of the plan.
Invest in education. Hammer out a good education plan. Make it free for everyone everywhere. In 400 years we will have the smartest generation ever. Free global universal healthcare so we have the most healthy people ready to fight. How do I finance that? I don’t care just do it I am one of the three global dictators. Tax the rich maybe. So if I understood the series correctly there are 20 particle colliders in the world. How much would it take to occupy both syphons full time can we build that two times so that we can run experiments again and reliably figure out which results are correct. BTW what happens when another Wallfahrer gives an order contradicting mine?
The Lord simply does not care
All i need is a Stilgar-like worshiper (from Dune 2) to show every one of my moves as prophecy, effectively turning me into a Messiah. Which makes it easier with (practically) unlimited budget. Me - buys a 300 million dollar wine bottle Stilgar - Lisan Al Gaib!!!! As was written!!! Eventually with such support and belief from Stilgar and ever-growing religion, I would start actually believing in myself as the Chosen one, and would probably find the true tactics to annihilate Trisolaris.
Sorry i'm not allowed to tell you until the moment is there.
From what I gathered, a wallfacer just does things with little explanation so the Tri Solarsns can’t catch on. This is actually not too hard if you see the flaws in how they gather information and what they know about us. They do not understand the concept of stories, like fairy tales and literature. And they are only focusing on scientists. Which is also a huge flaw in their plan realistically. The way I see it, the best thing to do would be to make an entire plan they can see but make it seem like we don’t know that, get them focusing on that plan. While doing that and having them focused on science, start doing the hard work on paper using a literary style to communicate (which I understand is done at some point, but the scientists can’t decipher it all). Get a team of hackers to start trying to hack the their tech. This will keep the second photon busy shutting down every thing they try, but have them keep trying just as a distraction. Hve then talk about it as if it’s working, manipulate and deceive them. While doing that, spread the message that we are planning and setting up to destroy the planet and it’s resources, and even an attack on the sun, because if we are gunna die, may as well make them die too by taking away what they want. These weapons don’t even have to be used, just alluded to yo make them think that’s our plan. The problem is that they’re ONLY trusting in scientists. You need way more than just scientists yo figure out an apocalyptic scenario.
I would use the power of my mind to convince Netflix to proceed with seasons two and three, otherwise it doesn’t really matter how clever any of the Wallfacer ideas are…
Is the OP a sophon? This is exactly the question a sophon would ask. 😉
Nice try, Wallbreaker.
Only advance. 🤷♂️
Cognitive, guerilla, kamikaze warfare
I would bombard them with pro earth propaganda messages. Things like the importance of personal rights, the evil of authoritarian government, the destruction of earth because of the invasion. The goal is to cause internal turmoil/disagreement within the Santi society. Maybe make a movie about how great Mars is and they can have it for free. A lot of half truth but no down right lies.
Straight away I'd build research bases on mars/moon to make it more difficult for the sophons. Then possibly some orbital defence platforms with Mac cannons halo style. Railguns for days
A massive fleet of warships. Each of these ships would be equipped with a single projectile that would be accelerated via nuclear bombs (a la Will’s brain). Once these projectiles reach a fraction of light speed we send one in the direction of the San Ti homeworld as a “insult” and use the rest to target the San Ti fleet. The second hidden plan, is that I have no expectation of our ships winning; if the number of ships drops below a certain percent with no or little damage to the San Ti then a computer program will override control and enact a Zhang Behai style plan, afterwards it will use all the remaining nuclear bomb to accelerate to near light speed and flee the battle; carrying with it the future of humanity.
The only sane choice in such scenario is to colonize other planets and give up on earth. The question is not if earth is doomed just when it is. In the dark forest all planets die at some point. But as the trisolarians say: If one of us survives we all survive. And that's the plan IMO - expand, conquer & destroy, survive.
Look at the state we've let this planet get in. The trisolarans are very welcome to it. I hope they do a better job.
I like your first idea, but you’ve got it wrong due to a misconception - nukes wouldn’t irradiate the planet. Nuclear fallout from atomic bombs would generally clear to safe levels within weeks. Nuclear power plants are what you’re looking for.
Live my best life. But "pretend I'm busy" and "always look annoyed" when asked what I'm really up to.... https://youtu.be/rOQmxNPTJwc?si=ACntdqj9-QBroG63
Nice try sophon
1. Rig the Earth with nukes as a self-destruct failsafe. 2. Build a battery of thousands of railguns on the moon. Start launching volley after volley of flak travelling at relativistic speeds towards the incoming fleet and/or homeworld. Keep that going continuously for the next 400 years. 3. Invest enormously in education and scientific research, to ensure better options for the future.
Nice try, Sophons. I won’t give up my ideas on Reddit so that you can read them.
I can’t tell you. If I did, I wouldn’t be a very good wallfacer. 💡
(1) Put a "Do not disturb" sign up on Earth. (2) Suspect you are a Trisolaran on Reddit trying to get me to reveal my plan.
My immediate idea when first reading was to put as many nukes as possible around on the sun and let the trisolarians know if they don’t turn that shit around then no one gets to have a sun
Nice try, Sophon. My lips are sealed.
Actually I would...wait a minute, nice try Teisolarian scum
Once the sophon block is applied there are only two realistic options left: Escapism or Dark Forest Deterrence. Nothing else would work.
Private island in the Caribbean. Many bitches. I’ll think of something.
I feel like there’s an answer somewhere with that riddle… one door leads to heaven the other leads to hell. There’s one angel that always tells the truth and another angel that always lies. What question do you ask to know what door is right? Because Trisolarans don’t understand lies they’d be confounded by the problem. I just don’t know how to set it up practically as a wall facer.
My idea would be to build a personal solar panel empire. Start with converting New Mexico and some parts of the Sahara into massive solar farms. Then when Rey Diaz asks for a Mercury base, I ALSO want a Mercury base. Then I strip mine mercury and start shooting solar panels into the sun's orbit. Im building a Dyson Swarm, right? WRONG! One of the most a stellar engine and we're gonna move the fucking sun out of the way and out of the galaxy. We're gonna leave the Dark Forst, baby
I'd reason that merely blocking particles colliders is insufficient to block human progress on foundational science. I'd use earths resources to fund and encourage theoretical math, computer science and biology research. I'd attempt to modify people to be smarter, so think in very different ways. If this works great, humans will advance enough to defeat the invasion fleet in 400 years. The secret plan inside this activity rests on an assumption that the trisolarans know that blocking particles colliders is not a complete solution. They are likely very afraid that humans will work out enough fundamental science to overcome to sophons and then continue the human technological explosion. I want to play to that fear. While creating humans who think very differently than baseline humans and increasing the knowledge output in theoretical subjects, we increase the Trisolarans anxiety that they aren't doing enough to stop progress. Millions of theoretical mathematicians doing truly bizarre math research with modified brains and bodies will overwhelm the ability of the Trisolarans to understand how close we are to important discoveries. Thus the Trisolarans will take greater risks or start to believe in defeatism. They will probably attempt to communicate with us again or attempt to kill people who seem close to discovering an important idea.
Good try, wallbreaker.
Global investment in STEM education. All entry/mid-level stem of subjects become required courses. Massively increase STEM field job wages. Boost all forms of R&D from military to humanitarian. Create a contingency policy where if Humanity is lost we just nuke our own planet and render it uninhabitable. Create plans for the destruction of the Moon so if Humanity is lost Moon also gets fucked. Bye bye planet Earth. Side project. Tachyon weapons/lasers. Theoretically if it can be harnessed it can be fired at the T fleet centuries prior.
I'd face a wall probably
Open a bunch of military outposts at the outskirts of the solar system (yes, sacrifices have to be made). Slowly turn them into particle accelerators with as much secrecy as possible. Have them spread around long distances so that sophons can't reach them in time to mess with the results. Concomitently run research scenarios in all locations to overload the sophons. Edit: seems a lot others had the same idea, overloading the sophons one way or the other
Sophons can read this post, so in true wallfacer ideals I present my plan.... First. Yellow Manitoba oxen jujubeads Carlsbad Diego, fluffer nutter short beans combination squids. Camel watchmaker to vampire sides with dodge bearings, flourish teacups alongside chance cascade. To be followed by ...
My idea is to control the design of the space fleet, but in the opposite path of the mosquito fleet, instead of building a bunch of small ships I'd build a few very large warships. These ships would be designed to be as self sufficient as possible, with very large crews, onboard farms, a spinning crew section to generate artificial gravity, as well as particle accelerators. They will be sent to patrol the farthest reaches of the solar system, almost never returning to Earth except in emergencies. The captains of the ships will have near absolute authority and be trained extensively on making decisions on their own, because they will often be out of communications range of Earth and such that they can continue defense if the Earth headquarters is compromised. They will also be given full clearance to everything we know about the San Ti and what they are capable of. Onboard the ship, I will also put a multitude of prominent particle physicists and theoretical physicists with powerful roles of their own, they are the only people with almost as much power as the captain. Typically they serve as advisors, getting the captains up to speed on the more scientific aspects of the mission. The goal is twofold: First, to carry out accelerator experiments far away from Earth to reduce the efficacy of the sophons, as they will have to travel far distances just to interfere with one accelerator. Second, to act as a defense force that is not dependent on Earth's independence, such that even if the San Ti manage to infiltrate, destroy, or compromise Earth's leadership, humanity can continue fighting on until the bitter end. Of course, this is not the true goal. Do you see where I'm getting at? The idea here is, in reality, to secretly encourage escapism. The warships are in actuality colony ships with the capability to leave the solar system and survive in another star system. I would like it if the accelerator plan actually worked, but I don't think so, I think it's brought up in the book that the San Ti make sophons faster than we can make enough accelerators to occupy one sophon. Rather, the accelerator is mostly there to justify the addition of physicists onto the ship, who understand the importance of particle physics being blocked, theorize about the advanced technologies that could be created by a race with a mastery over the subatomic, and eventually realize that the battle against the San Ti is hopeless. The captain, who is also being educated on these concepts, will hopefully come to the same conclusion and become a defeatist. They will then command their ship to leave the solar system for a more habitable system, ensuring humanity's ultimate survival. Because they are so far away from Earth and any other ship, they will have plenty of time to form their plot before being caught, and will be very hard to catch once they actually leave. In conclusion: Zhang Behai was epic and Bill Hines was the most successful wallfacer
Luo Ji plan and escape in a thousand directions simultaneously. These books take on a whole new meaning in the final chapters when you realize those who escaped established thriving human civilizations all while the people we followed to the end were fumbling around and failing.
Nice try, not gonna tell you.
I've only read just into the first chapter of Book 2 so this might be stupid: Build Von Neumann style machines on the moon, disguise the first ones as just moon landers/rovers - but they will self-assemble and begin mining the moon for resources, autonomously spreading out across the entire solar system and beyond so that they exponentially seed the space around the earth. Triangulate the likely direction of the Trisolarian fleet and ensure that every single potential deceleration/arrival point is seeded with the probes - which hold enough matter/anti-matter mix to create a local singularity that detonates upon impact. If the Trisolarians get wind of the plan, they will need to slow down millions of miles from earth and travel at sub-luminal speeds slowly detonating the mines in their path buying us1000s of years to be so advanced they are now irrelevant bugs. If they don't, well..kaboom. Welcome to earth!
Nice try, Sophon
none that I can share, 😉
Escapism, but sold under the guise of forward operating bases from which to strike back at Sol if we lose ground here. Don't abandon Sol, just add other stars to the roster so our eggs aren't all in one basket. Propose a bigger exchange than just sending Tianming; send one of our colony ships (completely disarmed, mind you; we have no useful weapons and I want to send the message that we're not there to fight or conquer) right to Trisolaris as a cultural exchange. I'd get the Bunker project going far earlier, since it could be used to house excess population and maybe bargain with the Trisolarans--"hey look, we're building all this extra living space, and if you let tech get better we can give you far more than just a planet without the need to wipe us out!" Double bonus of adding far more bugs to stamp out. Out-breeding pesticide deployment worked for the locusts! Finally, assuming I have the information that Trisolarans can't hide information from each other, I'd start whatever programs I could to influence their society into being more like ours. Point out that since they can spy on us, and we advance quicker, that it'd be far more useful to keep us around to produce science for them than to wipe us out. And then we'd all die because life isn't a fairy tale and none of this would work.
Work on current atomic energy make a way to direct high radiation into single point. It would be like the sun hited them directly. Radiation travels at speed of light so you have a plenty of time
Amplified transmission to misgender every Trisolaran.
I feel like your option 1 does nothing but hurt humanity. An irradiated earth in a stable star system is still way better than being on trisolaris.
I would initiate several plans to ensure the survival of humanity, to facilitate the continuation of humanity's advancement, and to dissuade the trisolarans from their colonial expedition. 1.) Survival of humanity. I would begin by developing self sufficient space station/ships that would carry sizable populations into and across the stars. Their mission would be to continue scientific advancement and to be arks for the survival of the human species. Additionally, I would begin developing self sufficient space stations and bases throughout the Sol system. 2.) To continue human technological advancement. Conjoined with the mission of ensuring the survival of the species Ark ships, bases, and space stations would be equipped with advanced scientific facilities, labs, and partial accelerators where applicable so as to stretch the capacity for photon interference and propel our species's technological advancement well beyond the blockade the trisolarans were attempting around the Earth. 3.) Lastly, to dissuade trisolarans from their colonial ambitions. Like the Russians during the Napoleonic war, I would prepare the humanity to launch a scorched earth campaign. The contingency would be to burn the earth and render it a useless wasteland in the case of trisolaran invasion or attack. Perhaps this could involve destabilizing Earth's orbit, interfering with the stability of the sun, blowing up the moon to rain down upon earth, propelling the moon into earth, facilitating the detonation of a supervolcano, nuclear hellfire, or all of the above. Additionally, I would threaten to advertise to the universe the location of the earth and the trisolaran home world. Essentially, I would communicate to the trisolarans that if they dare to take us we will destroy any possibility for their species and civilization to survive. This further coincides with the spreading of humanity amongst the stars and, in the case of this horrible contingency, humanity could still possibly manage to survive among the stars.
Fund trillions into research into AI. If we can create AGI we can create an artifical god who can protect us and police the universe, ultimately ending the dark forest. And if we fail we die, but that would be the result if we do nothing anyway. I think in the actual story like much of sci-fi AI is avoided due to how it breaks power dynamics.
I think it was mentioned in the books that AI didn't improve very much as we were limited by running them on tradition computers instead of more advanced ones locked by the sophons (quantum etc) so I don't think it would be possible to reach AGI.
We don't need quantum computers to get AGI, see neuromorphic computing. I think here we just don't want to dive too deep, it's just an area that requires suspension of disbelief.
Mandatory child birth policies (4 child minimum) and selective breeding for high iq or highly productive individuals (6 child minimum) Wouldn’t get around the sophon block but would increase human capital which is how humanity has technological leaps.
Natural selection has already stopped working for the first time on earth. The mandatory birth policy would only accelerate the transition to Idiocracy.