The Dark Forest is the second book in the science fiction trilogy popularly known as Three Body Problem, written by Chinese author Liu Cixin. To get a general idea of the plot (especially if you have not read the first part), some definitions are in order.
Oort Cloud : This is the extended shell of icy objects at the outermost reaches of the solar system, at a distance of about 2000 AU from the Sun. 1 AU equals the distance between the Sun and the Earth. We are surrounded by trillions of icy, cold objects consisting of comets and asteroids. Think of it like a giant, icy donut/sphere that surrounds the solar system and extends about one quarter of the way to Proxima Centauri.
Proxima Centauri is the third member of the Alpha Centauri system. Alpha Centauri is a three star system with planets and one of the planets is home to the Trisolarans, an alien civilisation that is technologically much more superior to us and they are coming to invade the Earth. The planet Trisolaris has three suns, hence the name Three Body Problem. When the three suns of Trisolaris line up, the planet will plunge into the nearest star thus ending the civilisation. The Trisolarans are obviously looking for ways to survive this catastrophe, one of which is to find a suitable planet to invade. In the first book, one of the scientists on Earth sends a radio message out into space. It is received on Trisolaris after four years. Once they have confirmed that the signal came from Earth, they send a huge army of spaceships to invade. It will reach Earth in about four centuries. Here, author Liu Cixin attempts to answer the Fermi Paradox proposed by the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi.
Enrico Fermi was one of the prominent scientists on Manhattan Project during WWII. During a casual conversation with Edward Taylor, a fellow physicist and others, Fermi is said to have asked, “Where are they?” Typical to his nature (he was very fond of back-of-the-envelope calculations) he then proceeded to calculate the probability of existence of extraterrestrials. The conclusion was that there are many, many, many alien civilisations in the universe and we ought to have been visited by them many times over. Obviously, that has not happened conclusively, hence the Fermi paradox. Liu Cixin has an interesting answer for this. It is called The Dark Forest.
The Dark Forest is our universe. It is filled with advanced, intelligent civilisations. But the moment any of these civilisations attempts to communicate, it becomes vulnerable because now it has revealed its location. This is what a scientist on Earth did causing the Trisolaran invasion. The Trisolarans have also made other strategical moves to ensure that they win this battle. One of them is to send to Earth their ultimate weapon – Sophon. What is a Sophon?
Sophons are subatomic devices that can be used to spy on Earth. Each Sophon is a supercomputer in a higher dimension. Apart from spying on every communication on Earth, it also prevents the scientific progress on Earth so that when the Trisolarans invade, Earth will not be advanced enough to defeat them. They also manage to contact some earthlings who are in favour of the invasion. These humans form the Earth Trisolaris Organisation (ETO). The ETO tries to help the Trisolarans by undermining preparations for Earth defense. It also helps the Trisolarans in understanding how humans work because despite their technological advances, the Trisolarans are very simple minded creatures. They communicate by transmitting thoughts and as a result the concept of lying is foreign to them. They take every communication at face value.
This is the only defense against Trisolarans. They cannot comprehend what deceit means. They can monitor every communication on Earth but they cannot probe our minds. When humans realise this, they come up with a novel way to defend themselves. The United Nations appoints four persons a special status. These are the Wallfacers.
Wallfacers are four special persons designated by the United Nations for developing the defense strategy against the Trisolarans. They are given unlimited power and resources and they are not answerable to anyone because the moment they discuss their plan with anyone, the spying Sophons will transmit the information to Trisolaris.
Three of the Wallfacers are quite predictable. Frederick Taylor is former US Secretary of Defence, Ray Diaz is former president of Venezuela and Bill Hines is a British neuroscientist. The fourth Wallfacer is the odd one out. Luo Ji is an astronomer and a sociologist, specialising in cosmic sociology. As expected, the first three Wallfacers announce big plans to combat the invasion, from making million hydrogen bombs to creating a fleet of kamikazi fighter pilots.
Luo Ji disappears to a scenic location, gets married and has a child, all with the UN money. No one can understand why he is doing this but everyone assumes he has a secret plan. To combat these four Wallfacers, the ETO develops four Wallbreakers. Mission of each Wallbreaker is to disclose the secret plan of the Wallfacer to the world, thus nullifying his effectiveness.
Three Body Problem series happens over 18,906,450 years. When you have a canvas of such magnitude, along with new science and scientific ideas turning up at every corner, you cannot afford to spend any time on character development. Hence I am always puzzled by the argument in many science fiction reviews that they have ‘cardboard characters.’ If you want human psychology, go read Dostoyevsky or Somerset Maugham. In science fiction, new scientific ideas are the characters. Best example of this is the three laws of Robotics invented by Isaac Asimov in his novels. If you are going to have the same human interest story in a futuristic setup, can it really be called science fiction? Case in point is the movie Gravity. With the first crime in space just being investigated, there are going to be more and more human stories that happen in space, on Moon and Mars. Will they all be lumped under science fiction just because they happen in space or in future?
Good science fiction always makes you aware of new possibilities. It could be about how to survive on Mars (The Martian) or how robots should and probably will behave (I, Robot).
Asimov developed the concept of psychohistory that embodies mathematical sociology in his Foundation Series. On similar lines, Liu Cixin proposes ‘cosmic sociology’ that has two main axioms.
1. Survival is the primary need of civilisation.
2. Civilisation continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.
The whole plot of Three Body Series is based on these axioms. They are deep, thought provoking and a possible answer to the Fermi Paradox.
The Dark Forest is science fiction in its purest form.
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David Benioff and D. B. Weiss are the creators of Game of Thrones while Alexander Woo is best known for writing several episodes of the HBO drama series True Blood. Their adaptation of the Three Body Problem is streaming on Netflix.
