Three Body Problem, a hard sci-fi drama from Tencent

I just found an interesting sci-fi drama from China, with the title of "Three Body". It is a sci-fi with hard science approach. The story is about an Alien civilization from Trisolaris planet who planned to invaded Earth. They will arrived on Earth in 400 years with their invasion fleet. To destroy the Earth capability to fight back, they sabotaged Earth's technology. By convert and killing Earth's scientists secretly. They created a game called Three body to recruit Earth Scientists to join their rank; while they used their superior technology to attack Earth scientists mind so they would commit suicide.

They used their converted Scientists to gather their targetted scientists for scientific discussion; to brainwash them with scientific mind games; to make them thinking that their passion in science is pointless, and their struggle to invent new technology is futile.

This sc-fi is written by Liu Cixin, who also wrote previous Chinese's first sci-fi movie, Wandering Earth.

What make this drama so special for me is, because the war between human and alien doesn't involve any weapon. At least to the current stage of the story. They use psychological attack to do their bidding. From brainwashing the scientists to kill them by using secret weapon that can cause hallucination to their target.

My favorite Alien mind game in the story is the Farmer Theory.

Every morning on a turkey farm, the farmer comes to feed the turkeys. A scientist turkey, having observed this pattern to hold without change for almost a year, makes the following discovery: “Every morning at eleven, food arrives.” On the morning of Thanksgiving, the scientist announces this law to the other turkeys. But that morning at eleven, food doesn’t arrive; instead, the farmer comes and kills the entire flocks.

This story tell us that the turkeys think that they will get food every morning without realized that they're themselves are the food.

Basically the Alien brainwash their victims to think that humans are the turkey while they are the farmer. And whatever these turkeys do is futile. Because at the end of the day, they are just the food for the farmer.

 

Trailer on Youtube

 

You should watch the drama. It's good. It has dark and mysterious vibe. The story itself is some kind of antithesis to Star Trek. This drama give the same feel as Terra Invicta. A PC game with the similar premise.

 

I've read the books and attempted the unofficial follow-up. Is the Netflix adaptation still stuck in limbo?

 

Anyone know how far the series goes. I've only read a book and a half so far. Don't want spoilers.

 

It's already in episode 30. The fan translation reach episode 21. Hopefully it will come to Netflix. Basically it's still in the first book, the Three Body problem, and hasn't reach the Dark Forest yet. But according to some people who have read the book, the live drama adaption is faithful to the book.

 

Maybe because the series still on-going in China?

 

It's okay. Basically the story is an antithesis to Star Trek. Because according to it, the MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) concept in the book is by broadcasting the location of the planet. So all Alien in the galaxy will know about the location of the planet and will come to invade them. So according to Liu Cixin, every intelligent beings in the universe hide their location to avoid being destroyed by another intelligent species.

 

“Ball Lightning” is my favorite

 

It's still in post-production but should be released this year.

 

And the character Ding Yi is appeared in both novels. Not only that, Ding Yi even appeared in the Dark Forest. It seems that he's the author's favorite.

 

China is said to have actually captured ball lightning on a frame of film. Stenhoff’s non-fiction book of the same name has a trace on one exposure.

 

I think the show is only covering the first book right now.

 

Actually I found the 2nd book adaption. But in anime version, and not live action.

 

Does the anime cover both books or just the second?

 

They cover only the second book. The live action drama cover the first book I think. The anime title is San Ti.

 

If anyone is interested in the books and the ideas in them, there's a YouTube channel that goes into detail on them.

He has several on the Remembrance of Earth's Past series that The Three Body Problem is part of as well as other scifi novels. He's going over the series as well as they are released.

 

Yes, I like Quinn's Ideas too. I've already watch some of his youtube. Specially about Three Body Problem series. There is also one of his video that explain about the physiology of the Trisolaris.

The idea of Alien, according to Liu Cixin even make me think about our fate. The fate that started with NASA capsule that sent to space, long time ago. A capsule with our information.

Just because NASA sent a capsule or something to the space long time ago. A capsule about Human. About our language, about our knowledge / math; etc.

What if that capsule is founded by an Alien race who have the fate like Trisolaris in The Remembrance of the Earth's Past? How many years, do we, human actually have until our aggressors come to Earth? 200? 300? That's scary.