The Ultimate Weapon of The Trisolarans | Three Body Problem Series

[Music] hi guys it's quinn here if you enjoy my channel consider hitting the like button it's the only way the youtube algorithm really notices me it's not every day that i love a book series and i read a lot of book series especially science fiction ever since i read the three body problem series aka the remembrance of earth's past trilogy i have not been able to stop thinking about it the scale of this series is enormous the ominous mysteries that it invokes are intriguing and chilling to the core now i've made a few videos on this series and you can find those linked in a playlist in the description in this video we will discuss some of the major events detailed in book 2 the dark forest the great ravine and the tricelerian invasion of the solar system by the year 205 of the crisis era humanity at large believed that they had nothing to fear from the tri-soleran fleet which had more than 200 years before it would reach our solar system fear of the tricelerans whose sofon technology had crippled humankind's understanding of physics and allowed the aliens real-time knowledge of events on earth had once nearly destroyed humanity plunging them into a devastating period of time known as the great ravine one might be tempted to compare the great ravine to the depression of 1930 but the great ravine and nowhere compares to the great depression it is far worse and the year 1930 there were about 2 billion people on earth at the start of the great ravine there were 8.3 billion people on earth and when there was no more food billions starved i have seen the grand march of hunger millions of people fleeing famine on the great plains through sand that blocked out the sky hot sky hot earth and hot sun when they died they were divided up on the spot it was hell on earth there are tons of videos to watch if you want the great ravine awakened the worst of humanity cannibalism and obscene violence mankind became a gaggle of desperate animals fighting for scraps of food and resources we had pushed mother earth to her breaking point and the dried-up world could no longer provide the great ravine was brought on by several things the increasingly hostile political climate brought on by the knowledge of alien existence and their intended invasion as well as humans growing hopeless due to the feeling that there was nothing that they could do to prevent the invasion were among the contributors but the biggest factor in causing the great ravine was the change of climate which was sped on by the creation of the space force since the concept of escapism had been banned globally the world focused tremendous resources on the development of planetary defense the space force's creation and maintenance heavily polluted the atmosphere raising the temperature of the earth tremendously desertification began rapidly all over the earth at once eventually food could not be grown the great ravine lasted 50 years and during that time the vast majority of humans on earth died the population decreased from 8.3 billion to 3.5 billion the great ravine had been a time of tremendous suffering for humankind famine on a level never seen before up until this point the great ravine was the lowest point in human history for many it must have felt like the end of the human race but it was merely a crucible humankind had been brought through it to appear on the other side after the population of the earth drastically decreased society eventually began to restabilize but this was only after the remaining people decided that perhaps the price they were paying to win the doomsday battle was too high the people of earth had to choose to focus on the present rather than what is to come there was a revolution new governments were formed the space strategies terminated humanity poured its attention into improving the lives of people eventual crucial technology like genetic engineering and fusion technology emerged large-scale food production was no longer dependent on weather humankind entered a new golden age after about 50 years of peace following the great ravine humanity again turned its thoughts to the tricelarines and their fleet which still approached earth a global state of war was redeclared and production of the space force begin again this time however with the more conditional trajectory of resource expenditure as well as an assurance that work on the space force was to under no circumstance have a harsh impact on the world economy and community life the space fleets of the world became independent countries with a central governing body known as fleet international by the year 205 of the crisis era about a hundred years after the great ravine humankind had been renewed with confidence ironically the space force whose construction had led to the climate conditions that had exacerbated human suffering during the great ravine was by the year 205 of the crisis era the reason that humans were now confident that their own technology had surpassed the tricelerians or was at least sufficient to thwart them they were convinced that they could never again return to the chaos of the great ravine humankind's exponential technological development was something the tricelerians had acknowledged and feared sofon technology could limit it in many aspects but not outright stop it space vessels of this era were enormous three times the size of the largest sea going carriers of the 21st century the giant spacecraft equal in volume to three of the largest sea going carriers of the 21st century was practically a small city but it had no bridge or command module or even a captain's room or operations room in fact it had no specific functional compartments whatsoever all of them were identical regular spears that differed only in size at any location inside the ship you could just use a data glove to activate a holographic display which due to the high cost was a rarity even in earth's super wired society and at any location so long as you had the appropriate system permissions you could pull up a complete command console including a captain's interface which effectively made the entire ship even the passageways and bathrooms a bridge command module captain's room and operations room technology had made incredible leaps and bounds and ships of this day were simplistic to operate given that one possessed proper permissions operations on board ships were essentially automatic requiring minimal input to initiate under maximum acceleration the best of humanity's fleet could reach 120 g's obviously a force far greater than what a human body could withstand without being crushed because of this the crew would have to enter a deep sea state essentially cabins would be filled with an oxygen-rich fluid which trained professionals could breathe directly a ship would not enter ultra acceleration mode unless it detected that the crew was in a deep sea state pressure was an equilibrium inside and outside of a human body filled with deep sea acceleration fluid meaning it could sustain high pressures like a deep sea fish the environment of a liquid-filled cabin in a rapidly accelerating spacecraft was like that of the deep sea so the liquid was now being used to protect human bodies against the ultra acceleration of space travel hence the term deep sea state the space force now consisted of thousands of powerful fusion-filled warships equipped with lasers of immense destructive capabilities the technological development of the space fleet was however not the only reason for humanity's confidence that the tri-salons were no longer a severe threat to human society on earth after passing through dust clouds the tricelerian fleet had begun to slow down after passing through several of such clouds over the course of its two-century journey into our solar system it had lost its formation entirely the trisolarens have however launched an object which is nearing our solar system some believe the object was a military probe but there was a growing sentiment held by many people that it was a gift from the tricelerians a metaphorical white flag communicating surrender or perhaps a willingness to negotiate the belief that the tricelerians would seek to negotiate was common in this era for the tricelerians would know of the current state of humanity's technological development when humanity received the object within the solar system it did not self-destruct as they expected it would had it been a military probe they were then certain that it was a gift and the beauty of the object did nothing to dispel this idea the probe was a perfect teardrop shape round at the head and pointy at the tail with the surface so smooth it was a total reflector the milky way was reflected on its surface as a smooth pattern of light that gave the mercury droplet a pure beauty its droplet shape was so natural that observers imagined it in a liquid state one for which an internal structure was impossible because of the droplet people's opinions of the tricelerians began to change humanity began to recognize that the tricelerians were like themselves a great civilization enduring the cold and uncaring cosmos in search of a stable home the public's opinion of the tricelerians began to change from hatred to sympathy and even admiration the existence of the tricelerians meant we were not alone in the universe perhaps we could have a friend among the stars the u.n and the fleets accelerated their preparations for negotiations and the two internationals began organizing delegations all of this took place in the day after the droplet was captured but what excited the people most of all was not the facts before their eyes but the rudimentary outline of a bright future what sort of fantastic paradise would the solar system become after the union of tricelerian technology and human power the droplet was incredibly dense as if the molecules had been nailed into place it had no vibrations it was completely solid and because of this the object's temperature actually read at absolute zero the droplet was a marvel of technical engineering which demonstrated a scope of technological advancement that humankind had not breached yet in normal matter the separation between nuclei in separate atoms is actually quite large to squeeze them together as they were in the droplet would require obscene force far beyond the capabilities of humanity this was their first hint that something was deeply wrong but by then it was already far too late the droplet was not fragile like a tear entirely the opposite its strength was a hundred times greater than the sturdiest material in the solar system all known substances were as fragile as paper by comparison it could pass through the earth like a bullet through cheese without even the slightest harm to its surface then what's it here for the lieutenant colonel blurted out who knows maybe it really is just a messenger but is here to give humanity a different message dingy said turning his gaze away from the droplet what if i destroy you what business is it of yours suddenly the droplet moved and when it moved it moved incredibly fast the four members of the expedition team which had received the droplet were annihilated immediately the human fleet which was watching from a thousand kilometers away initially read this as the droplet self-destructing they felt sorrow for the four they had lost and disappointed that the droplet was not in fact a messenger of peace but nothing could have prepared the human race for what happened next within 51 seconds from the time of the explosion the droplet had already flown 1500 kilometers and now approached the corner of the space force's formation by this point neither the space force nor its computer systems had comprehended that the droplet had not been destroyed in the initial explosion the computer systems did not register the droplet as a physical object as its movements were seemingly impossible it was moving at twice the third cosmic velocity executing precise sharp turns without any drop in speed such force would completely flatten a normal object the droplet with its incredible force begins to pass through the ships of the space fleet after passing through infinite frontier the droplet continued onward at a speed of 30 kilometers per second in the space of three seconds it had crossed 90 kilometers passing through young fan infinite frontier's neighbor in the first row and then through foghorn antarctica and ultimate leaving their holes red hot as if the warships were giant lamps lined up this triggered a kind of chain reaction each of the ships had been hit in the fusion fuel tanks nuclear fireballs illuminated the entire fleet against the smooth blackness of space in precisely one minute and 18 seconds the droplet had passed through the 100 ships in the first row of the space force's formation leaving a trail of metallic magma adrift in space as the droplet approached the second row the fleet still did not understand what was happening the sheer amount of information they had received in the last 80 seconds or so had only been analyzable by the computer system which had finally falsely determined that a powerful enemy space force had appeared and launched an attack on the fleet the computer could provide no information about the enemy the droplet was invisible to every means of detection they possessed and was far faster than they had the capability to deal with by this time fleet commanders were in a state of num shock for nearly two centuries research into space strategy and tactics had dreamed up every possible kind of extreme battle condition but witnessing a hundred warships blowing up like a string of firecrackers in under a minute was beyond what their minds could comprehend the tide of information surging out of the battle information system meant that they were forced to rely on the analysis and judgment of the computer battlefield decision-making system and focused their attention on detecting an invisible enemy fleet that didn't even exist all battle monitoring capacity was directed into the distant regions of space ignoring the danger right in front of them a fair number of people believed that the powerful invisible enemy might be a third-party alien force distinct from humanity and trisolaris because in their subconscious minds trisolaris remained the weaker losing side the scattering of superheated debris caused by these explosions further added to the confusion of this event the computers misconceived the presence of this debris as an indication that the fleet was engaged in exchange of fire with an enemy space force everyone believed the droplet had already been destroyed when the droplet moved to destroy the second row of ships they were all still aligned the droplets surged and in one minute and 20 seconds the second row of 100 ships had been annihilated the droplet took two minutes and 35 seconds to destroy the third row of ships the ships in this row had begun to activate their defensive systems and were slightly misaligned but it made little difference thirteen minutes of destruction went on before the fleet command system finally arrived at the correct assessment various scenarios for the doomsday battle had been concocted during the two centuries of study of space strategy but in the minds of strategists the enemy had always been big humanity would meet the main part of the mighty tricelerian force on a space battlefield with every warship a fortress of death the size of a small city they had imagined every extreme form of weapons and tactics the enemy could possibly possess the most terrifying of which involved the tricelerian fleet launching an attack using anti-matter weapons and obliterating a stellar-class battleship with anti-matter the size of a rifle bullet but now the combined fleet had to face facts their only enemy was a tiny probe one drop of water out of the enormous ocean of tri-solar and strength and this probe attacked using one of the oldest and most primitive tactics known to human navies ramming considering the complexity of the situation and the sheer volume of information the fleet command system assessed the problem relatively quickly it just wasn't quick enough the droplet itself was too quick in that short time it had destroyed more than 600 warships a devastating reality washed over everyone who had the potential to conceive the truth of the situation command of a space battle was beyond their reach and because of sofon technology it was beyond the reach of their artificial intelligence as well humanity would likely never have the capacity to engage in battle with trisolaris purely in terms of command they simply could not react fast enough in 20 minutes half the fleet roughly 1 000 ships had been completely destroyed the remaining 1000 ships were scattered trapped in an expanding cloud of heated debris at this point the droplet speed was 10 times the third cosmic velocity moving at 170 kilometers per second its course took it smashing through debris that liquefied under impact splashing away at high speed to collide with other debris and giving the droplet a brilliant tail first it resembled a comet bristling with rage but as the tail lengthened it turned into a huge silver dragon that stretched ten thousand kilometers the entire metallic cloud glowed with the dragon's light as it whipped to and fro in its mad dance the warships penetrated by the dragon's head begin to explode along its body so that it was dotted with the nuclear explosions of four or five small suns at any given time further back molten battleships became multi-million ton metallic magma explosions that died its tale of bewitching blood red 30 minutes later not a single ship remained in the cloud all but 21 ships had escaped the cloud but the droplet went after them too intending to complete its massacre quickly it had hunted them down and destroyed them humanity's space force in the end had been useless against tricelerian technology nine trisolaren probes presumably just like the one that had destroyed the entirety of humanity's space force would arrive within the solar system within three years with the destruction of the space force human society once again collapsed into chaos they had been lulled into a false sense of security only to have it dashed away brutally in a devastating instant the annihilation of the human race seemed almost certain at this point that was until luogie a relic of a past governmental program known as the wallfacer project committed the actions which would lead to the deterrence era we will discuss the deterrence era and the events leading up to it in another video the droplets massacre and how deeply unprepared humanity is for it in this book forces us to consider the things that we are unprepared for in our society like humanity in this era of the series we are also overconfident that our technology will rectify our future problems like climate change or overpopulation and we are overconfident that the societal structures that we have created will remain stable indefinitely there are a countless number of ways our society could recollapse into a dark age disease nuclear weapons a cosmic threat like an asteroid our society our existence is neither guaranteed nor stable also like the humanity during this era in the book we live mostly comfortable lives that comfort often adds to the illusion of safety and stability and quite frankly sometimes it is just easier to believe that the future will be good based on little evidence at all and disregard totally the information that suggests otherwise this leaves us utterly unready when unavoidable problems suddenly occur the journey for humanity does not end here however for humanity in the series i mean as for the real world i guess nobody knows if you like my videos consider following me on twitter also help me out by hitting the like button if you're interested in more about this series or some other cool sci-fi books check out the rest of my channel where i cover some of my favorite science fiction stories now that i still have you here i guess i'll tell you about some of the science fiction books that i read recently the first one is the labyrinth i saw this in a bookstore and i just had to have it this one's awesome because it relies on a lot of visual storytelling which as a lover of graphic novels i really enjoy this can kind of be thought of as a different kind of graphic novel it has a really heavy sci-fi aesthetic but that's really just in the background to what is ultimately a very simple story about vengeance and crimes against humanity and the things that the perpetrators of those crimes tell themselves to justify them i'll just show you guys a little bit of this beautiful art [Music] so i definitely recommend this for anybody that's into the sci-fi aesthetic and also just like simple story don't go into this expecting some grand action adventure or some like crazy mystery because this really is just kind of a simple story but really really good next up is children of time which i freaking loved i can't say too much about this one without spoiling a bunch but it's not for an arachnophobe essentially this one is about human hubris and evolution and what is selfhood and what is consciousness there's a lot of really cool concepts squeezed into this one but this is one of the most fun science fiction books that i've read in a really long time it's also really deep it's really smart and it just is a page turner when i got it i could not put it down i read it in a couple of days so this one's really good and i will talk about this one more on my channel and the future and there actually is a sequel which i'm reading now called children of ruin which continues uh in this same world so that's really really awesome thank you guys so much for hanging out with me on my youtube channel my own graphic novel tadia exordium goes back on sale for the general public on march 20th that's when you can pick that up on my website quinnhoward.net thank you guys so much