Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem

“What can I do now? What is the purpose of my life? I have four point five billion dollars and an international oil company. But what good is all that? Humans have surely invested more than forty-five billion dollars in saving species near extinction. And probably more than four hundred and fifty billion has already been spent on saving the environment from degradation. But what’s the use? Civilization continues to follow its path of destruction of all life on Earth except humans. Four point five billion is enough to build an aircraft carrier, but even if we build a thousand aircraft carriers, it would be impossible to stop the madness of humanity.”

“Mike, this is what I wanted to tell you. Human civilization is no longer capable of improving by its own strength.”

“Can there be any source of power outside of humanity? Even if God once existed, He died long ago.”

“Yes, there are other powers.”

The sun had set and the loggers had left. The forest and the loess hills were silent. Ye now told Evans the whole story of Red Coast and Trisolaris. Evans listened quietly, and the loess hills and the forest in dusk seemed to listen as well. When Ye was finished, a bright moon rose from the east and cast speckled shadows on the forest floor.

Evans said, “I still can’t believe what you just told me. It’s too fantastic. But luckily, I have the resources to confirm this. If what you told me is true”—he extended his hand and spoke the words that every new member of the future ETO would have to say upon joining—“let us be comrades.”

Three more years passed. Evans seemed to have disappeared. Ye didn’t know if he really was somewhere in the world working to confirm her story, and had no idea how he would confirm it. Even though, by the scale of the universe, a gap of four light-years was as close as touching, it was still a distance that was unimaginably far for fragile life. The two worlds were like the source and mouth of a river that crossed space. Any connections between them would be extremely attenuated.

One winter, Ye received an invitation from a not-very-prominent university in Western Europe to be a visiting scholar for half a year. After she landed at Heathrow for her interview, a young man came to meet her. They didn’t leave the airport, but instead turned back to the landing strip. There, he escorted her onto a helicopter.

As the helicopter roared into the foggy air over England, time seemed to rewind and Ye experienced déjà vu. Many years ago, when she first rode in a helicopter, her life was transformed. Where would fate bring her now?

“We’re going to the Second Red Coast Base.”

The helicopter passed the coastline and continued toward the heart of the Atlantic. After half an hour, the helicopter descended toward a huge ship in the ocean. As soon as Ye saw the ship, she thought of Radar Peak. Only now did she realize that the shape of the peak did resemble a giant ship. The Atlantic appeared like the forest of the Greater Khingan Mountains, but the thing that reminded her most of Red Coast Base was the huge parabolic antenna erected in the middle of the ship, which resembled a round sail. The ship was modified from a sixty-thousand-ton oil tanker, like a floating steel island. Evans had built his base on a ship—maybe it was so that it would always be at the best position for transmission and reception, or maybe it was to hide from detection. Later, she learned that the ship was called Judgment Day .

Ye stepped off the helicopter and heard a familiar howl. It was caused by the giant antenna slicing through the wind over the sea. The sound again drew her thoughts to the past. On the broad deck below the antenna, about two thousand people stood in a dense crowd.

Evans walked up to her and solemnly said, “Using the frequency and coordinates you provided, we received a message from Trisolaris. We’ve confirmed everything you told me.”

Ye nodded calmly.

“The great Trisolaran Fleet has already set sail. Their target is this solar system, and they will arrive in four hundred and fifty years.”

Ye remained calm. Nothing could surprise her anymore.

Evans pointed to the crowd behind him. “You’re looking at the first members of the Earth-Trisolaris Organization. Our ideal is to invite Trisolaran civilization to reform human civilization, to curb human madness and evil, so that the Earth can once again become a harmonious, prosperous, sinless world. More and more people identify with our ideal, and our organization is growing rapidly. We have members all over the world.”

“What can I do?” Ye asked in a soft voice.

“You will become the commander in chief of the Earth-Trisolaris Movement. This is the wish of all ETO fighters.”

Ye remained silent for a few seconds. Then she nodded slowly. “I’ll do my best.”

Evans raised a fist and shouted at the crowd, “Eliminate human tyranny!”

Accompanied by the sound of crashing waves and the wind howling against the antenna, the ETO fighters shouted as one, “The world belongs to Trisolaris!”

This was the day that the Earth-Trisolaris Movement formally began.

The most surprising aspect of the Earth-Trisolaris Movement was that so many people had abandoned all hope in human civilization, hated and were willing to betray their own species, and even cherished as their highest ideal the elimination of the entire human race, including themselves and their children.

The ETO was called an organization of spiritual nobles. Most members came from the highly educated classes, and many were elites of the political and financial spheres. The ETO had once tried to develop membership among the common people, but these efforts all failed. The ETO concluded that the common people did not seem to have the comprehensive and deep understanding of the highly educated about the dark side of humanity. More importantly, because their thoughts were not as deeply influenced by modern science and philosophy, they still felt an overwhelming, instinctual identification with their own species. To betray the human race as a whole was unimaginable for them. But intellectual elites were different: Most of them had already begun to consider issues from a perspective outside the human race. Human civilization had finally given birth to a strong force of alienation.

As astounding as the speed of the ETO’s growth had been, the number of members did not tell the whole story of the ETO’s strength. Because most of its members had high social status, they held a lot of power and influence.

As commander in chief of the ETO rebels, Ye was only their spiritual leader. She did not participate in the details of the organization’s operation, didn’t know how the ETO grew so large, and wasn’t even aware of the exact number of members.

In order to grow fast, the organization operated semi-openly, but the governments of the world never paid much attention to the ETO. The ETO knew that they would be protected by the governments’ conservatism and lack of imagination. In those organs wielding the powers of the state, no one took the ETO’s proclamations seriously, thinking that they were like other extremists who spewed nonsense. And because of its members’ social status, governments always treated it carefully. By the time it was recognized as a threat, the rebels were already everywhere. It was only when the ETO began to develop an armed force that some national security organs began to notice it and realized how unusual it was. Consequently, it was only within the last two years that they had begun to attack the ETO effectively.

The members of the ETO were not of a single mind. Within the organization were complicated factions and divisions of opinion. Mainly, they fell into two factions.