by Liu Cixin
“Princeps, given the frequency of the transmission, even the direction of the source cannot be ascertained with great accuracy. The fleet is only capable of cruising at one-hundredth the speed of light. Also, it only has enough power in reserve to perform one deceleration, making it impossible to conduct a wide-area search in that direction. If the distance to the target is unclear, the fleet will ultimately fall into the abyss of space.”
“But look at the three suns around us. At any moment, the plasma outer layer of one of them may begin to expand and swallow its last planet, our world. We have no other choice. We must make this gamble.”
33
Trisolaris: Sophon
Eighty-five thousand Trisolaran hours (about 8.6 Earth years) later
The princeps had ordered an emergency meeting of all Trisolaran consuls. This was very unusual. Something important must have happened.
Twenty thousand Trisolaran hours ago, the Trisolaran Fleet had launched. The ships knew the approximate direction of their target but not its distance. It was possible that the target was millions of light-hours away, or even at the other end of the galaxy. Faced with the endless sea of stars, the expedition had little hope.
The meeting of consuls occurred under the Pendulum Monument. [As Wang Miao read about this episode, he couldn’t help but recall the session at the UN Building in the Three Body game. In reality, the Pendulum Monument was one of the few objects in the game that really did exist on Trisolaris.]
The princeps’s choice of meeting site confused most of the attendees. The Chaotic Era wasn’t over yet, and a small sun had just risen over the horizon, though it could also set at any moment. The temperature was cold, and all the attendees were forced to wear fully enclosed electric-heating suits. The massive metal pendulum swung magnificently, pounding the frigid air. The small sun cast a long shadow against the ground, as if a giant whose head touched the sky were striding there. Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the princeps ascended onto the base of the pendulum and flipped a red switch.
He turned to the consuls and said, “I have just shut off power to the pendulum. It will gradually stop under the influence of air resistance.”
“Princeps, why?” a consul asked.
“We all understand the historical significance of the pendulum. It’s intended to hypnotize God. But now we know it’s better for Trisolaran civilization to have God awake, because God is now blessing us.”
Everyone was silent, pondering the meaning of the princeps’s words. After three more swings from the pendulum, someone asked, “Has the Earth responded?”
The princeps nodded. “Yes. Half an hour ago I received the report. It was a response to the warning that was sent.”
“So soon! Only eighty thousand hours have passed since then, which means … which means…”
“Which means that the Earth is only forty thousand light-hours from us.”
“Isn’t that the closest star from here?”
“Yes. That is why I said God is blessing Trisolaran civilization.”
The attendees grew ecstatic, but they couldn’t express the feeling, so the crowd seemed like a pent-up volcano. The princeps knew that allowing such weak emotions to explode would be dangerous. So he poured cold water on their sentiments.
“I have already ordered the Trisolaran Fleet to turn toward this star. But things are not quite as optimistic as you think. Given what we know, right now the fleet is sailing toward certain death.”
The consuls calmed down.
“Does anyone understand my conclusion?”
“I do,” said the science consul. “We’ve all studied the first messages from Earth carefully. The section most worthy of attention is their history. Let’s observe the facts: Humans took more than a hundred thousand Earth years to progress from the Hunter-Gatherer Age to the Agricultural Age. To get from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age took a few thousand Earth years. But to go from the Industrial Age to the Atomic Age took only two hundred Earth years. Thereafter, in only a few Earth decades, they entered the Information Age. This civilization possesses the terrifying ability to accelerate their progress.
“On Trisolaris, of the more than two hundred civilizations, including our own, none has ever experienced such accelerating development. The progress of science and technology in all Trisolaran civilizations has been at a constant or decelerating pace. In our world, each technology age requires approximately the same amount of time for steady, slow development.”
The princeps nodded. “The fact is that four million and five hundred thousand hours from now, when the Trisolaran Fleet has reached the Earth, that civilization’s technology level will have long surpassed ours, due to their accelerating development. The journey of the Trisolaran Fleet is long and arduous, and the fleet must pass through two interstellar dust belts. It’s very likely that only half of the ships will reach the Earth’s solar system, while the rest perish along the way. And then, the Trisolaran Fleet will be at the mercy of a much more powerful Earth civilization. This is not an expedition, but a funeral procession!”
“But if this is true, Princeps, then there are even more frightening consequences…” the military consul said.
“Yes. It’s easy to imagine. The location of Trisolaris has been exposed. To eliminate future threats, an interstellar fleet from Earth will launch a counterattack against us. It’s very possible that long before an expanded sun swallows this planet, Trisolaran civilization will have already been extinguished by humans.”
The bright future had suddenly turned impossibly grim. The attendees fell silent.
The princeps said, “What we must do next is contain the progress of science on Earth. Luckily, as soon as we received the first messages from Earth, we began to develop plans to do so. As of now, we’ve discovered a favorable condition for realizing these plans: The response we just received was sent by an Earth traitor. Thus, we have reason to believe that there are many alienated forces within Earth civilization, and we must exploit such forces to the fullest.”
“Princeps, that is not at all easy. We have but a thin thread of communication with the Earth. It takes more than eighty thousand hours to complete an exchange.”
“But remember that, like us, the knowledge that there are extraterrestrial civilizations will shock all of Earth society and leave profound marks. We have reason to believe that the alienated forces within Earth civilization will coalesce and grow.”
“What can they do? Sabotage?”
“Given a time gap of forty thousand hours, the strategic value of any traditional tactics of war or terror is insignificant, and they can recover from them. To effectively contain a civilization’s development and disarm it across such a long span of time, there is only one way: kill its science.”
The science consul said, “The plan focuses on emphasizing the negative environmental effects of scientific development and showing signs of supernatural power to the population of Earth. In addition to highlighting the negative effects of progress, we’ll also attempt to use a series of ‘miracles’ to construct an illusory universe that cannot be explained by the logic of science. After these illusions have been maintained for some time, it’s possible that Trisolaran civilization may become a target of religious worship there. Then, unscientific ways of thinking will dominate scientific thinking among human intellectuals, and lead to the collapse of the entire scientific system of thought.”
“How do we create miracles?”
“The key to miracles is that they cannot be seen as tricks. This may require that we transfer certain technologies far above current human technology level to the alienated forces on Earth.”
“That’s too risky! Who knows who will ultimately control such technologies? That’s playing with fire.”
“Of course, which specific technologies should be transferred to produce miracles requires further study.…”
“Please hold on for a moment, Science Consul,” said the military consul as he stood up. “Prin
ceps, I am of the opinion that this plan will be almost useless in terms of stopping human science.”
“But it’s better than nothing,” the science consul argued.
“Barely,” the military consul said contemptuously.
“I agree with your view,” the princeps said. “This plan will only interfere slightly with human scientific development. We need a decisive act that will completely suffocate science on Earth and freeze it at its current level. Let’s focus on the key here: Overall technological development depends on the advancement of basic science, and the foundation of basic science lies in the exploration of the deep structure of matter. If there’s no progress in this field, there can be no major breakthrough in science and technology as a whole. Of course, this is not specific to civilization on Earth. It is applicable to all targets that Trisolaran civilization intends to conquer. We had begun work in this area even before receiving the first extra-Trisolaran communication. But we’ve recently stepped up the effort.
“Now, everyone, look up. What’s that?”
The princeps pointed at the sky. The consuls lifted their heads to gaze in that direction. They saw a ring in space giving off a metallic glow in the sunlight.
“Is that the dock for building the second space fleet?”
“No. That’s a large particle accelerator still under construction. The plans for building a second space fleet have been scrapped. All resources are now devoted to Project Sophon.”
“Project Sophon?”
“Yes. We’ve kept this plan secret from most of you present. I now ask the science consul to give an introduction.”
“I knew about this plan, but didn’t know it had progressed so far.” The speaker was the industry consul.
The culture and education consul said, “I knew about this plan as well, but thought it was like a fairy tale.”
The science consul said, “Project Sophon, to put it simply, aims to transform a proton into a superintelligent computer.”42
“This is a science fantasy that most of us have heard about,” the agricultural consul said. “But can it be realized? I know that physicists can already manipulate nine of the eleven dimensions of the micro-scale world, but we still can’t imagine how they could stick a pair of tiny tweezers into a proton to build large-scale integrated circuits.”
“Of course that’s impossible. The etching of micro integrated circuits can only occur at the macro scale, and only on a macroscopic two-dimensional plane. Thus, we must unfold a proton into two dimensions.”
“Unfold a nine-dimensional structure into two dimensions? How big would the area be?”
“Very big, as you will see.” The science consul smiled.
* * *
Another sixty thousand Trisolaran hours went by. Twenty thousand Trisolaran hours after the completion of the huge particle accelerator in space, the unfolding of the proton into two dimensions was about to begin in a synchronous orbit around Trisolaris.
It was a beautiful and mild Stable Era day. The sky was particularly clear. Like the day when the fleet had set sail eighty thousand Trisolaran hours ago, the entire population of Trisolaris looked up into the sky, gazing at that giant ring. The princeps and all the consuls again came and stood under the Pendulum Monument. The pendulum had long stopped, and the weight hung still like a solid rock between the tall pillars. Looking at it, it was hard to believe that it had once moved.
The science consul gave the order to unfold into two dimensions. In space, three cubes drifted around the ring—the fusion generators that powered the accelerator. Their winglike heat sinks gradually began to glow with a dim reddish light. The crowd anxiously stared at the accelerator, but nothing seemed to happen.
A tenth of a Trisolaran hour later, the science consul held his earpiece to his ear and listened intently. Then he said, “Princeps, unfortunately, the unfolding failed. We reduced the dimensions by one too many, and the proton became one-dimensional.”
“One-dimensional? A line?”
“Yes. An infinitely thin line. Theoretically, it should be about fifteen hundred light-hours long.”
“We spent the resources intended for another space fleet,” said the military consul, “just to obtain a result like this?”
“In scientific experiments, there has to be a process during which kinks are worked out. After all, this was the very first time the unfolding has been tried.”
The crowd dispersed in disappointment, but the experiment wasn’t over. Originally, it was thought that the one-dimensional proton would stay in synchronous orbit around Trisolaris forever, but due to friction from solar winds, pieces of the string fell back into the atmosphere. Six Trisolaran hours later, everyone outside noticed the strange lights in the air, gossamer threads that flickered in and out of existence. They soon learned from the news that this was the one-dimensional proton drifting to the ground under the influence of gravity. Even though the string was infinitely thin, it produced a field that could still reflect visible light. It was the first time people had ever seen matter not made out of atoms—the silky strands were merely small portions of a proton.
“These things are so annoying.” The princeps brushed his hand against his face over and over. He and the science consul were standing on the wide steps in front of Government Center. “My face always feels itchy.”
“Princeps, the feeling is purely psychological. All the strings added together have the mass of a single proton, so it’s impossible for them to have any effect on the macroscopic world. They can’t do any harm. It’s as if they don’t exist.”
But the threads that fell from the sky grew more numerous and denser. Closer to ground, tiny sparkling lights filled the air. The sun and the stars all appeared inside silvery halos. The strings clung to those who went outside, and as they walked, they dragged the lights behind them. When people returned indoors, the lines glimmered under the lamps. As soon as they moved, the reflection from the strings revealed the patterns in the air currents they disturbed. Although the one-dimensional string could only be seen under light and couldn’t be felt, people became upset.
The torrent of one-dimensional strings continued for more than twenty Trisolaran hours before finally ending, though not because the strings had all fallen to the ground. Although their mass was unimaginably minuscule, they still had some, and so their acceleration under gravity was the same as normal matter. However, once inside the atmosphere, they were completely dominated by the air currents and would never fall to the ground. After being unfolded into one dimension, the strong nuclear force within the proton became far more attenuated, weakening the string. Gradually, it broke into tiny pieces, and the light they reflected was no longer visible. People thought they had disappeared, but pieces of the one-dimensional string would drift in the air of Trisolaris forever.
* * *
Fifty Trisolaran hours later, the second attempt to unfold a proton into two dimensions began. Soon, the crowd on the ground saw something odd. After the heat sinks of the fusion generators began to glow red, several colossal objects appeared near the accelerator. All of them were in the form of regular geometric solids: spheres, tetrahedrons, cubes, cones, and so on. Their surfaces had complex coloration, but close examination showed that they were, in fact, colorless. The surfaces of the geometric solids were completely reflective, and what the people saw were just distorted, reflected images of the surface of Trisolaris.
“Have we succeeded?” the princeps asked. “Is that the proton unfolded into two dimensions?”
The science consul replied, “Princeps, it’s still a failure. I just received the report from the accelerator control center. The unfolding left one too many dimensions in, and the proton was unfolded into three dimensions.”
The giant, reflective geometric solids continued to pop into existence in great numbers, and their forms became more various. There were tori, solid crosses, and even something that looked like a Möbius strip. All the geometric solids drifted away from the location of the ac
celerator. About half an hour later, the solids filled more than half the sky, as though a giant child had emptied a box of building blocks in the firmament. The light reflected from the mirror surfaces doubled the brilliance of the light hitting the ground, but the intensity continuously shifted. The shadow of the giant pendulum flickered in and out, and swayed from side to side.
Then, all the geometric solids began to deform. They gradually lost their regular shapes, as though they were melting in heat. The deformation accelerated and the resulting lumps became more and more complex. Now the objects in the sky no longer reminded people of building blocks, but of a giant’s dismembered limbs and disemboweled viscera. Because their shapes were no longer so regular, the light they reflected to the ground became softer, but their own surface coloration turned even more strange and unpredictable.
Out of the mess of three-dimensional objects, a few in particular drew special attention from observers on the ground. At first, it was only because the objects in question were very similar to each other. But upon closer examination, people recognized them, and a wave of terror swept Trisolaris.
They were all eyes! [Of course, we don’t know what Trisolaran eyes look like, but we can be certain that any intelligent life would be very sensitive to representations of eyes.]
The princeps was one of the few who kept calm. He asked the science consul, “How complicated can the internal structure of a subatomic particle be?”
“It depends on the number of dimensions of your observation perspective. From a one-dimensional perspective, it’s only a point—that’s how ordinary people think of the particles. From a two- or three-dimensional perspective, the particle begins to show internal structure. From a four-dimensional perspective, a fundamental particle is an immense world.”
The princeps said, “To use a word like ‘immense’ to describe a subatomic particle such as a proton seems incredible to me.”
The science consul ignored the princeps and continued, “As we move to higher dimensions, the complexity and number of structures within a particle increase dramatically. The comparisons I’m about to make will not be precise, but should give you an idea of the scale. A particle seen from a seven-dimensional perspective has a complexity comparable to our Trisolaran stellar system in three dimensions. From an eight-dimensional perspective, a particle is a vast presence like the Milky Way. When the perspective has been raised to nine dimensions, a fundamental particle’s internal structures and complexity are equal to the whole universe. As for even higher dimensions, our physicists haven’t been able to explore them, so we cannot yet imagine the degree of complexity.”