The TV show, 3 Body Problem, is an adaptation of Liu Cixin’s novel, The Three Body Problem.
I read Cixin’s book several years ago, back when it was up for the Hugo Award, which it eventually won. The book explores a lot of ideas, such as the difficulty in making predictions with inherently chaotic systems, communications with extraterrestrials, the Fermi paradox, whether humanity can or should survive, among others. I enjoyed the novel, and always meant to read the rest of the trilogy, but never got around to it.
The TV show creators include David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the guys who brought us Game of Thrones. At this point my memory of the book is a bit hazy, but the show makes a number of changes from what I recall. It moves most of the story out of China to the UK, although it does keep Ye Wenjie as Chinese and her actions deeply rooted in the persecution she faces in Maoist China.
But the show does break up the main Chinese protagonist from the contemporary part of the novel into four separate characters, all friends and scientists living in the UK. Having separate characters allows a lot of interior monologue in the book to be externalized for the screen. And I’m sure the thinking is that anglicizing them makes the show more approachable for western audiences. The show does keep one of the central characters Chinese, and the detective character of Asian descent.
Based on the final episodes, it also facilitates continuity with the second book, which I assume will be continued in the second season (if hopefully there is one). Those final episodes move beyond where I recall the book getting to, and set up some important developments based on what I’ve heard about the other books.
I was happy to see that some iconic scenes were kept, like the one in the Panama Canal, and the final one where the hard nosed detective shows the scientists why things aren’t nearly as bleak as they seem at that point.
Similar to the book, the story is focused on scientific concepts. Although it’s not the hardest sci-fi around. For example, while Alpha and Proxima Centauri can be thought of as a three star system, they don’t have anything like the dynamics portrayed. And the book relies on the idea of quantum entanglement enabling faster than light communication, a sci-fi trope grounded in a common misconception about how entanglement works. Those are the ones that jump out to me. I’m sure there are others.
Still, the exploration of ideas is fun. And the story does mostly stay away from outright magical technologies like hyperspace. Instead it includes technologies like a variant of nuclear pulse propulsion.
I haven’t mentioned much about the actual premise. The reason is it’s hard to get into it without also getting into spoilers. But I don’t think it’s spoiling too much to admit it involves an alien threat.
Overall, I enjoyed it as much as I recall enjoying the book. Worth checking out.
Have you watched it? If so, what did you think? Watching anything else interesting?
SelfAwarePatterns 
Yeah, I’m looking at it. Still have more than half to go. I’m a sucker for alien invasion stories but the rationale for inviting them to fix our problems is somewhat akin to the craving for an authoritarian ruler and will likely end just as poorly. FYI: I don’t actually know how this plot turns out.
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In the book, I recall Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans being onboard with humanity’s destruction, understanding fully what they’re doing. The show softens their stance to the “Come fix our problems” one. I understand why. It’s hard to make them sympathetic without us being in their heads. But it also makes them look naive.
I won’t spoil the season. And don’t really know too much about the story beyond that myself.
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I finished it. I think too much was left hanging at the end even if there is another season. I expected more of a hint about what the San-T are like. Are they just AIs? Or, more humorously bugs themselves? They also seem a little Borg-like but that could be compatible with AIs or bugs.
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Yeah, ever since 2001 A Space Odyssey, it’s become acceptable and fashionable in sci-fi not to show the actual aliens. Ironically, it happened in 2001 because Kubrick in the late 1960s didn’t have the technology available to do decent aliens. But since then it’s become a crutch.
I do wonder if the fact that the aliens can dehydrate and rehydrate is a clue. The only animals that can do that here are tiny. But I haven’t read the other books yet, so that’s just speculation.
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Yes, it is a clue and the title obviously.
Guesses. They are from a binary system (2 suns, one planet) and their planet has a highly chaotic orbit that results in periods of stability and warmth but other periods that are dry and cold. During those cold, dry periods, they dehydrate and wait for the stable and warm periods. That information is communicated immediately, however, suggests hive-like mind. So maybe they are something like ants that can hibernate.
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It’s actually revealed at one point that they’re in a three star system, although your description is closer to the Alpha Centauri system dynamics. Overall it is a three star system, but Proxima Centauri is a fifth of a light year away from the other two, way too far to have any detectable orbital effects. The other two stars orbit between 11 and 36 AU from each other. Any planet in the habitable zone would likely orbit just one or the other, although 11 AU seems close enough to cause orbital trouble. It’s about the distance of Saturn from our sun, but a star is a much larger mass.
I wonder why Liu Cixin didn’t put the aliens farther away. If nothing else it would have made it much harder for geeks like me to scrutinize. But I saw somewhere that he acknowledges the Centauri system doesn’t match the story, but it was what inspired it, so I guess he decided not to worry about it.
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In the three circle diagram/symbol, one circle is a lot smaller than the other two which might suggest a planet if that diagram means anything. It might also possibly be a one star system with a really big planet and a smaller one. I wasn’t thinking of the 400 years/1% speed of light factor would which would suggest the Centauri system.
If the San-T can hibernate for hundreds of years, they might be the ideal species to spread across the galaxy.
Another thought that occurred to me while watching this was about the Borg. We always think of the Borg as hostile as they are portrayed in Star Trek. Their command to prepare to be assimilated adds to their evilness. If we think about it from the Borg point of view, however, they might think they are doing us a favor, that any rational species would desire the ability to share thoughts and experiences with others. A combination of many intelligent species would be greater than the sum of its parts and have much improved prospects for survival. The San-T might be expect that we would welcome them, especially after they were invited, except once they realized we could lie, then they might believe it to be a trap.
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I can’t remember in the show, but the book makes it explicit that it’s Alpha Centauri. Although really it’s Ye Wenjie surmising it based on the amount of time it took them to reply.
Yeah, the Borg were made as scary and creepy as possible. It’s not hard to imagine alternate versions that are more attractive, and some science fiction goes there. But it’s also easy to imagine a moderately attractive version that still forces people to join. Or sets things up where not joining is very difficult.
The San-T’s main motive seems to just be survival. My impression is that once they knew Earth existed, they were coming anyway. Again, not the hardest sci-fi, since Earth’s biosphere has been detectable across interstellar distances for billions of years. In a more realistic scenario, they would have come long before we evolved.
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For some reason Amazon keeps showing me this book, but I haven’t read it. I did notice the movie at some point on one of the streaming channels, but it wasn’t available at the time. Glad to hear it’s been released. I’ll have to check it out!
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I imagine Amazon is trying to cash in on the buzz around the TV show. It hasn’t shown it to me, but I already own the book. Hope Cixin Liu is getting his share of it all.
The show is on Netflix. I didn’t note that in the post, but it’s worth mentioning because there’s actually another Chinese made version on Peacock, which I haven’t seen.
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That opening scene, my god. I ate like an entire bowl of popcorn in the first five minutes. Thanks for reminding me that I’ve been wanting to watch it! Now I’m curious about the Chinese made version, but not sure if I’m willing to subscribe to Peacock to satisfy my curiosity.
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That opening scene is pretty intense. Interestingly, in the original Chinese book, Liu Cixin had to move it to the middle of the book, as a flashback, burying it to evade the censors (who I guess don’t bother to read whole books). He actually recommends the English translation for those who can read it, since it’s closer to his original intent.
I just learned that the Chinese TV series is on Amazon. Reportedly it’s very faithful to the book, although some people have pointed out that’s not necessarily a good thing since books and shows are different mediums.
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Well, turns out the Chinese one is not really on Amazon. I was curious and found just an entry that redirected me to Peacock. Amazon claimed I could watch it for free, but when I followed the redirect, Peacock threw up their subscription pitch. Lame. I’m the same in not being curious enough to subscribe just for a subtitled show I probably wouldn’t finish watching.
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If you’ve liked it then we’ll give it a try Mike. I can certainly understand why they’d make it a UK thing in the video series that’s merely Chinese themed. Yes western audiences will naturally be more agreeable, but in modern politics China is progressively flexing its growing might as well. Just as Putin’s is doing all he can to hold on to Russia’s diminished power by means of its crumbling military rather than economy, China has a steady bureaucracy that’s trainings its progressively more productive and brain washed people through its social credit system as unquestioning instruments of unified state goals. I consider this to be the destiny of humanity (not just the certain destiny of Taiwan): government control of citizens through automatic punishment and reward by means of monitoring device information. Western freedom advocates seem unconcerned by this potential because to them non westerners don’t matter.
Is there any paradox to “Fermi”? By composite engineering I think all life is destined to only propagate within the system that created it given that system’s constraints, and this will include any of its teleological machines. Beyond reality however, I do enjoy a bit of quality sci-fi and spaceship travel nonsense, so thanks for the recomendation.
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Keep in mind that my standards, when it comes to sci-fi, aren’t super high. Hope you enjoy it.
Fermi is usually thought of as a paradox because people find the reasoning, that there must be large numbers of civilizations out there, to be compelling. I agree it isn’t necessarily a paradox, but could just be evidence falsifying that line of reasoning.
Even if intelligent life is stuck in its home system, that shouldn’t prevent communication between systems. (The show posits that the signals are too weak, but there are parts of the EM spectrum that are naturally quiet and easy to detect artificial signals in.) Yet we’re confronted by profound silence. My own conclusion is that evolved sapient level intelligence is very rare, and so our nearest neighbors are very far away, possibly billions of light years.
But the story in this show and the books it’s based on explore a different answer.
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One thing I’ve thought about on the Fermi paradox is that even our 4.5 billion year old planet has only been producing signature EM fields for under a century. Thus over it’s history there’s been virtually no chance for us to be detected. But maybe it’s not fair to extrapolate that in general to say that even great planets like ours have only a 100/4,500,000,000 = .000002% chance of being detected. Since our planet has gotten pretty old, lots of other planets should be that way as well.
With a quick search I see that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy which has a rough diameter of 100,000 light years across with the closest star being 4.3LY away. Seems to me that our planet shouldn’t be the only one in 100 billion that can support advanced life. So if any civilizations between roughly 5 and 50,000 years ago were actively producing signature EM fields, we ought to be receiving them right now depending on how far away they were. But would any of those signals look like anything special to us given the degradation of maybe 25,000 years of travel? Or going the other way I guess we’ve been producing signature fields for under a century that could roughly get across our galaxy in 50,000 years. If there will be 500 civilizations out there detecting when our signals hit, will any of them be able to notice us? Sounds like you think that shouldn’t be a problem Mike. So you’re thinking planets like ours are just exceptionally rare?
Though I may be optimistic that our planet shouldn’t be all that rare, I suppose I’m a bit pessimistic on longevity once civilization becomes reached. Seems like there are too many plausible ways for a civilization to destroy itself over time. Let’s say our transmissions last for 2,000 years and it takes 1,000,000 years for a new civilization to rise up and do the same here, repeated again and again. So that would be a .2% chance of Earth EMF transmissions at any given point from now on. If there are 500 planets in our galaxy that do the same then 500 x .002 = 1 planet within this 100LY range ought to be producing at any one time. Thus these toy numbers say that there ought to be one other producer out there in our galaxy at the right time. And should detection from much further away be possible, these numbers suggest potentially countless fields ought to be detected by us right now. I suspect the answer is that those transmissions do exist, though degradation mandates that we don’t notice them.
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There is a difference between detecting and communicating. Once we know each other is there, establishing communication isn’t that difficult. But detection is harder, unless the other civilization is going out of its way to be detectable. I’m not sure anyone really knows how hard or easy an advanced civilization is to detect.
On the other hand, detecting another biosphere might be much easier. Earth has had an oxygen rich atmosphere for billions of years, which should be detectable across vast interstellar distances. There is some concern that there could be abiotic processes that could produce oxygen, but it seems like it would still put us on a relatively short list for further investigation, if anyone is looking.
On the rarity of planets like us, it’s all probabilities. But my guess is there are probably lots of planets out there with relatively simple microscopic life. Most of them never move beyond that. Complex life is a small subset, maybe 10% or less. So I would tend to think there would be others in our galaxy, although much farther than the nearest single celled biosphere. It’s civilization producing intelligence that is likely profoundly rare.
In the case of Earth, life arose fairly early, so that we’ve been detectable for billions of years. Complex life has been around for maybe 600-700 million years. But a civilization producing species didn’t arise until the last 0.3 million years, the last 0.0066% of the planet’s history. We’ve only been detectable for a minute fraction of that.
And no one really knows how long we’ll last. We could bootstrap ourselves into something that can survive whatever climatic shifts happen in the next several hundred million years. Or we could kill ourselves off tomorrow. Which means we have no idea, of the civs that make it this far, how many survive. Is the “great filter” behind us, or ahead of us?
It makes for better science fiction to assume it’s still ahead, but my own suspicion is that there are numerous filters, some we’ve passed, but we’re in the midst of others. An interplanetary civilization has a much better chance of surviving, an interstellar one (if possible) even more. Although becoming interplanetary or interstellar will probably require evolving into something different from what we are now.
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I’m not sure about the “communication” thing Mike. I guess the situation could be about like this. “Hey everyone, we just detected EMF which suggests a vibrant civilization existed 25 thousand years ago given that it should have been transmitted 25 thousand light years away from us. Now we’re going to start transmitting back to them specifically given our decoding of who they are [assuming that the signal has enough integrity and so we can transcribe it somewhat]. So if they’re still still around 25 thousand years from now then maybe in 50 thousand years we’ll start receiving specific messages from them replying us to us! How many of you are as excited about this as we are?” [Crickets….]
Not that it wouldn’t be amazing to learn about another civilization if certain EMF could be transcribed. That’s not currently looking too hopeful though. And even if that does ever happen, given time lags I think it should always be considered one way communication.
If you consider there to be lots of planets out there with very simple life, just as I do, I wonder what you think might prevent more advanced life from evolving as well? To me more advanced life seems pretty mandated eventually in a given situation, since why not keep going? What would mandate the denial of sentient life from developing, and then the language, written language, and specialized occupations that gave us our science and such?
I conversely think civilizations should tend to destroy themselves relatively fast and then emerge once again, with the cycle based upon how far down the ladder a given destruction happened to be. Essentially we should be trying to get what happiness we can in the present, and so human survival should depend upon the continued roll of our dice. Given human weakness it use to be that dice weren’t rolled in this regard — only for natural disasters. How might an organism like us defy the odds for thousands of years, or as you suggest, hundreds of millions?
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Right, if they’re 25,000 light years away, probably not much communication happening aside from, “We’re here.” And maybe an exchange of overall species stories. If the distances are shorter, than maybe advanced civilizations can have more, particularly if the individual players live indefinitely.
What prevents complex life? We have to remember that evolution has no direction or purpose. Results are not inevitable, but a result of a long series of events of varying probabilities. It took 3.5 billion years for complex life to emerge here through a series of crucial events. What was the probability of eukaryotic cells evolving? Or sexual reproduction? Or the geological changes that led to higher oxygen levels about 700 million years ago? (Photosynthesis raised oxygen starting billions of years ago, but for most of that time they still weren’t high enough for animals.)
The same factors apply exponentially for symbolic thinking intelligence. Its existence here so far is a blip on geological timescales. Human intelligence doesn’t appear to have been environmentally driven, but by social dynamics among early humans, creating a species specific arms race. If so, it has the hallmarks of a freak event.
On civilizations destroying themselves, maybe. No one knows. But I’m not inclined to fatalism about things like this. Which isn’t to say I think anyone today should suffer for unknown descendants. I think we care for them best by caring for ourselves and our immediate progeny. If we can act in our own foreseeable interests, the future will take care of itself.
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@milubo @selfawarepatterns.com
I agree about the characters in the book. It's frequently true that sci-fi authors aren't always great at character development. And when I read it years ago, I also wondered if anything was lost in the translation. But I do think the show improves on it somewhat.
I never watched The Leftovers. When it came out, the premise sounded a little too close to Left Behind, which didn't interest me. Although I've since heard good things about it.
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as always I enjoy your mails. But do yourself a favor and treat you with the second and third book of the trilogy. They are really good and oh so much better than the first one. I was at the same point. Read the first one, liked it, put it aside. One and a half years later I came to the second book but if I had known – oh I would have started it the minute I finished the first one. It’s much much more sci-fi. I really think you’ll like it. Keep up the nice work. Always enjoy your read. 🙂
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Hi Nico! I’m grateful for your kind words, and the encouragement. I actually needed it right now. Thank you!
I also appreciate the recommendation. I’ve always intended to read the rest of the trilogy. The second book has been in my Kindle account for years. It’s just that my reading list is hopelessly out of control, and so it keeps getting crowded out. But with the show now out, and with your recommendation, I’ll probably try to get to it sooner rather than later.
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The movies “Knowing” + “Contact” + “Ready Player One” + “Ender’s Game”
“Our Lord”? “What is lying?”?
I watched that and thought of AI and Sora and VR and thought, as soon as multi-modal AI can reimagine entire movies and allow you to inject yourself within the setting… Or when you can suggest a theme and have AI dynamically create an episode of Cheers, or The Simpsons, or Game of Thrones — dynamically inserting you inside the settings, speaking with the characters creating an entirely novel story line — customized for you?
That IS coming. We won’t be able to help ourselves. We’ll all die in fetid pools of our own urine and feces, our faces ensconced within thousand-dollar headsets.
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I think we’ll eventually be able to do what with AI, but remain skeptical it will be that soon. I’m thinking something more like self driving cars, where the first 80% is quick, but that last 10-20% is asymptotically hard. Maybe I’m wrong.
Hopefully there will be robots available to pick us up out of the fetid pools and clean us up, inject nutrients, etc. It’s worth noting that we can already drug ourselves up and follow something like that path. Some of us do, but most don’t.
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Boiled frogs, the lot of us.
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“You are bugs” is a metaphor, an analogy, or, essentially, a lie.
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War propaganda / psychological warfare.
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Yeah, but, “We cannot lie” is obviously, um, a lie. Maybe it was always a lie.
I can’t recall where I read it but there was a story with a character who had a molecule-thick whip installed in the tip of his index finger. He could extend and swirl it around slicing everything in its path.
Ever seen videos of welding done, I think with gold, where all the presenter did was press two very flat gold surfaces together, I think in the absence of oxygen, causing the gold to weld — without heat.
A nano-wire, I suspect, would be similar. the molecules would just rejoin after the wire passed. Maybe synth-diamond is too brittle, but steel? The effects were cool, though.
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On the lie, James Cross above was speculating that they might be a hive mind. If so, maybe the guy was talking with an individual in that hive, and they are who can’t lie, but the overall hive mind might be able to. Or maybe they had learned lying by the bug comment. Or the author was just trying to show the alien nature of their minds and didn’t think it completely through. Overall, I agree that no lying at all is suspect from an evolutionary perspective.
I wondered the same thing about the nanowires. It seems like it might still cause some kind of damage, but maybe not the clean cuts depicted. Can’t remember if the book addressed these points.
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I thought the same regarding evolution. Predator/prey relationships, I would think, would generally result in diverse representations of intentional falsities. Camouflage: both as hunter and hunted? Mimicry: flowers & insects & deceptive skin/scale/hair patterns? Substitution parents: the cuckoo? Lots of liars in nature. In fact, lying (intentional misrepresentation of the truth) might be a requirement for advanced life.
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Hurrah! It’s now on Netflix UK. I’ll binge.
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It’s weird how Netflix content varies by country. Be sure it’s not one of the old versions of the show, which weren’t that good. But if it’s the 2022-2024 version, then cool! Here we have to watch it on Paramount+.
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Oops, sorry. My reply was in terms of Halo. Didn’t catch that you were commenting on the 3 Body Problem post. Hope you enjoy it!
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I opened this and started reading without thinking. The 3 body problem is on one of my groaning to read shelves. I like to wait till i have all books before starting a journey. I had to stop cause worried over not spoilers but being influenced by others opinions.
Also did you realize it was the book by an asian author to win. Which is pretty cool a bit wrong but just plain good useless trivia.
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I tried to stay away from spoilers, but I can definitely understand being cautious.
When you read it, the Chinese origins of the book pretty much hit you immediately. The first scene takes place in the Cultural Revolution. (At least in the English translation. I understand the original Chinese version had it as a flashback later in the book.) And most of the story in the book takes place in China with Chinese characters.
The TV show keeps the Chinese backstory, but moves the contemporary parts of the story to the UK.
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