3 Body Problem - Sophons Explained
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- čas přidán 1. 04. 2024
- In season 2 of Netflix The Three Body Problem, Sophon scenes will likely be covered more, but so far the 8 episodes we got didn't do that very well. To those who didn't read the books this Alien technology may seem paradoxical. If it's so powerful, why doesn't it do more? That's why I'm making these videos.
Let me know if you have any questions. - Krátké a kreslené filmy
Latest video on 3 body problem: czcams.com/video/Fc0N_7S3IWE/video.html
Another problem is, why did the aliens reveal all their plans and explained why physics went wrong all of a sudden ? They could have left us in doubt.
Please...add CZcams subtitles to people who is not native English speaker...is a little hard to understand you just by listening and you can add some of international audience...and is just one button to click on here and it's done
@@alienlyra For some reason this is the only video where it won't enable automatic captions.
I'll see what I can do.
If there are bigger fish out there, then why wasn't it discussed either in the Netflix series or the books???
Pls tell me how I can watch the Chinese version. I'm a huge fan of 5he books but I do not like th3 Netflix version, I believe Netflix are telling a non-linear story so they can turn out season after season a make as much money as possible. Doesn't matter if its good just as long as its profitable. They so badly want another Game of thrones, which isn't surprising when you think who the writers are behind. Sorry for the rant. I subbed and liked the channel I think it's great......😊
Sophones made this video, this is pro Trisolarian propaganda. I formally denounce
😂
Sophons went into your brain and changed your neuron paths so they provoke such a response to this video. This comment is pro Trisolarian propaganda. I formally denounce.
Your disobedience has been noticed.
You are a threat
🤡
it's not that the Trisolarans being a small fish in the Dark Forest isn't well communicated, it's that the Dark Forest concept hasn't even been established or revealed yet in the show.
But it's revealed that they're only 4 lightyears away (that's the closest star) and in the book Ye Wenjie knew immediately that it means the galaxy is full of intelligent life, otherwise it's very improbable that 2 habited star systems exist directly next to each other. But even in the book they don't think it further: what about the others - which is a good thing, because it would have been too much too early. Let's say the fact that they are only 4 years away foreshadows further complications without holding up the story.
That’s intentional. Just like in the books people must believe trisolarians are undefeatedable great foe
Agreed, from memory the existence of other more advanced Aliens only came later in the book series .
@@bztube888that very concept was used by Luo Ji to deter the Trisolaran Invasion as the wallfacer.
It's kinda frustrating seeing the reception of the show. As a book fan, I thought it was impossible to adapt. All things considered, they done a stupendous job translating it from the book to a TV show. They got a few plot holes in for spectacle, sure: the sophons editing camera feeds, the fact Will's brain probe malfunctioned too soon and thus is too slow and so on.
However what I am seeing are people poking a lot of holes in the show that are things purposely convoluted meant to be revealed later. Why did they spend so much time with Will if the project was to fail? How did they develop cryotrchnology so quickly? Why was the stoner chosen to be a wallfacer if it's such an important job? Why are the sophons stifling progress on particle accelerators and not on the cryotech or naval engineering? If the San Ti are so powerful why aren't they coming faster?
All questions to which the answer is "keep watching", but it feels like everything about the show is mired in mistrust on the showrunners because of their big blunder on the final seasons of Game of Thrones.
People seem to forget that the GoT show was a masterpiece up until the point there was source material for them to fall back to, the show derailed once they ran out of source material and had to wing it. This is not the case here, the Rememberance of Earth's Past trilogy is already set in stone. People should get over the GoT blunder and take the show at its own terms, and just frigging WAIT FOR THE STORY TO UNFOLD!
The sophon question is valid though. All the other things are explained in the book but this is just a change that makes no sense.
@@saucevc8353 indeed, and I acknowledged that in my point.
@@saucevc8353 Are the sophons also sentient computers the size of earth in the books?
If so you cannot blame D&D for doing the hacking the entire world in episode 5 when even a weaker computer would be able to do that.
@@saucevc8353Every time it doesn't make sense that a Sophon could do something the main answer is that it wasn't one of the Sophons, but ETO collaborators.
The main exception is Wade's vision at the end. Dramatic effect I guess. It's a visual medium after all.
But let's just say the Sophons can do that if they committed both of them for that minute or so to just this 1 place and person. And move on.
Maybe the directors have faith that the book fans will be enthusiastic to discuss these questions with non-readers. The passionate fans of ASOIAF maybe did the same for GOT.
It’s not lost! That’s the whole point of Luo Ji’s revelation as a wallfacer. The audience will discover the dark forest soon enough. The show is doing a great job to mirror the moment of discovery with as it happens in the book.
Exactly
It felt rushed...12 to 16 Episodes would've done better
I agree! Even though Characters and storylines have been massively altered I think the show does a great job at conveying the narrative of the books so far.
I finished the series where and what book should I start with to continue from the series
@@mwe8414 Well the series has storyline from all three books. Basically it tells the full story of book one, and the start of book 2. While also threading in elements of book three's flashback scenes. If you really want to start a book close to where the series is, I'd recommend starting with Dark Forest. But the character names are really different, so you might not understand who is playing what role in the story.
That is not why sophon didn't do those kind of things, the simple answer is just that sophon is not that OP in the book, the show makes it so powerful that unecessary plot holes arise. The aliens also don't care if humans destroy Earth, they just need a stable system, they can live on Mars, Venus or asteroid belt just fine, Earth is just a nice bonus
Maybe, but they would have to terraform Mars to live on it, which wasn't something they were willing to commit to. Otherwise they wouldn't risk moving into an inhabited star system where the native civilization can discover dark forest deterrence at any time in the span of 400 years. They took a huge risk for Earth, and once they took that risk, Earth was essential to them.
It's like when we find gold deposits in one area. We don't care if a volcano erupts and destroys it, we'll just find another area. But once we build mines, invest our resources towards extracting that gold deposit, suddenly a destruction of that area would be devastating. And that's just a mine. Imagine a civilization level undertaking over the span of 400 years only to come and discover a destroyed Earth.
@@BlizzPortthe gold analogy is great.
Considering the dark forest theory, even if they went to Mars. Humans could have an issue with that too.
As though humans have a claim to Mars
@@BlizzPort according to book 2, they while prefer having a planet ready for them when arriving, they don’t mind the literal scored Earth either otherwise they would give more thought about Diaz’s plan
or it's the dark forest hypothesis, they need to silence the neighbor human who like a crying baby sending signal reveal its position, regardless to let human live or not.
They very much do care if humans destroy earth. Their ships aren't equipped for terraforming or anything like that. They have technology, but one must keep in mind that this was basically their one shot that they devoted their entire civilizations resources to, for making the sophons and building ships to get to earth. While they are advanced, they are also very tiny, which requires a lot of them to do things that even a single human could easily accomplish physically. So it's like if we're trying to move a boulder, while a giant the size of a skyscraper can just easily pinch it up and toss it 5 miles away. So while they are powerful technologically, they do put in a lot of effort and resources to achieve these things, their whole civilization is devoted to it. The ones back on their homeworld are left behind to essentially die, because they used soo much of their civilizations resources to put this invasion together, that they literally can't afford to send a second invasion, at least not for a very long time, and by then their planet could be destroyed by their 3 suns. They fully expect that the ships they sent might be the only ones from their planet able to colonize earth.
They also even had plans to try to keep intact human cities because they wanted to use them for their own habitation, or at least, the resources from it. This is partially because it's just soo much easier, because you already have processed materials to work with and things like running water and sewage and power lines, which while less advanced than them, is easier for them to convert to their needs than starting with absolutely nothing. The other part is they would still have to contend with wildlife. Even with their technology, there's a trillion bugs and other animals on earth, which would inevitably result in population losses for them, even if minor, and would still be something they'd want to avoid. They aren't a hive mind, even though they can communicate without speaking, so even though they behave like a collective in a way, they are a species of individuals. Even though they are very tiny, they're also very numerous, possibly numbering in the trillions, maybe even hundreds of trillions.
On their planet, they likely had to make a lot of sacrifices and special arrangements. They could live in bunkers under ground, but for their size, that's very deep. They still need resources even just to rehydrate, and if the planet is scorched, even their bunker resources could be evaporated and destroyed. Same with things like food....if you're having to dehydrate your civilization for centuries or thousands of years, anything you tried to store would likely spoil by then, and you'd also only rehydrate when the planets ecosystem recovered....and that doesn't mean it will recover fully. It might already be barren on the surface for the most part, with all the surface water evaporated away, requiring them to get all their water from deep in the planet. That also means they need to make far more preparations for food production. What this all means is that when they rehydrate, not all of their bunker facilities survive, and they lose most of their people. This might be a bonus for requiring less resources, but they also lose most of their best minds.
I'd imagine they try to store as much data as possible for future generations, but again, they likely lose a lot of it too. They've been doing this process for millions of years, so for them to only be a few hundred years more advanced than humans, shows just how much they've been set back. Most of their civilizations resources have been devoted to rebuilding over and over again, and ensuring they survive to be able to rebuild.
Are sophons are not responsible for CCTV feed manipulation? are they responsible for the "You are Bugs" messages? Surely if they are capable of digital data manipulation they are capable of controlling dgital devices, vehicles and weapons. That's a huge plot hole to fill.
A plot hole D&D caused. Sophons don't have these capabilities in the books. The changes are cool for spectacles, and it's great that Tatiana has superpowers, but D&D didn't think them through.😅
In the books, Sophons can only manipulate digital data at a slow rate. To fix the plot hole, you may understand the declaration of war as something took a long time for Sophons to prepare.
@@TheChappaaihow did the sophons effect the loudspeaker to have conversations?
@@tremarley9648 In the third book, a special device has to be made to interface with Sophons effectively. Perhaps Sophons can hack a device to release a virus or receive its transmission, but it would take a while. 🤦
@@tremarley9648 Thinking more physically, as a particle with positive charge, Sophon can also generate electromagnetic wave by flying around, which can be picked up by radio.
Great explanation. In the book it is clearer that building the Sophons was the largest and most advanced project the Trisolarans had ever attempted, and in the book there were many failed initial attempts. The Sophons were just the size of a proton and they are only able to affect tiny things also the size of atoms. They messed up subatomic particle experiments; They shot light particles into certain people's eyes to make a countdown; They messed with observatories detectors to make the "stars blink" (the background cosmic radiation in the book). In the book they didn't make the stars blink for everyone one Earth. That would've been too big an effect for the tiny Sophons to pull off.
Great points - but if plot holes were a problem... how about the fact that faster than light communication via entanglement already violates the no-communication theorem and you can't amplify a radio signal by pointing it at the sun. The dark forest theory also is an extremely simplified model and makes many assumptions that make it utterly unrealistic. The science in the book is more fantasy than science. This is true in all the books. Plot holes are everywhere in the series.
I wish there weren't so many and the books should have gone through several more rounds of revisions, but hey, I guess one can't ask for near perfection unless you're reading The Stormlight Archive.
@@ThomasMeli81
Although it's the common interpretation of entablement is that no information can be communicated between these particles, the fact is that we don't know how it works or if it's really impossible. For example , there are models using wormhole as an explanation for the link between particles. The San-ti may know things we don't, maybe this is mentioned in the books ?
@@ThomasMeli81 it doesn't violate the faster than light communication actually. True information from point A gets transferred to point B instantly however there is no physical connection between that information. You'd have to actually fly from point A to point B to verify the information transfer. So it doesn't create any paradoxes because you as an observator still are bound by laws of physics
No they could have done it.
We know that when they unravel protons to program them, the surface is perfectly reflectiv which makes the surface of their planet very cold during the process. When they make the sky blink, they do so by surrounding the Earth and changing which frequency of light can pass through, or not. It stays transparent to mostly everything but the background cosmic radiation.
However, in the book they're much more subtle. Like, in the show they litterally reveal without a doubt to the whole world that they're here and aren't frienfly. Whereas in the book they only reveal themselves to the leaders once with the "you are bugs". I think it's when they innitiate the wallfacer project but I can't remember. However, they just do it to the eyes of those leaders in this meeting.
@@bajs932 You can use this to send messages back in time. Any instant connection between points in the universe can be used as a time machine. Any naked singularity can be used as a time machine, any faster than light travel can be used as a time machine. The problem I see with most science fiction that employs FTL is that they simplify the consequences of FTL being possible (time travel and breakdown of causality, bootstrap "paradoxes", etc). The trisolarians with FTL sophons should be able to predict the orbits of their suns, even if they are chaotic, using FLT and time travel of information. How? I particularly like the simplified explanation on the video "Why Going Faster-Than-Light Leads to Time Paradoxes" of the channel coolworlds by professor David Kipping.
The netflix show didn't explain clearly that human loyalists are doing the physical hacking & creating items like the VR headsets etc..
Think about this. A “small fish” on the universe level took a look at us and said “yeah I think we can take ’em”
The hunter fired his shotgun and thought no one would notice. lol
But they were stupid enough to let us know that they are our enemy!
The sophons are still OP in so many ways:
1) They violate the laws of quantum physics in that they can be used for communication repeatedly without losing entaglement.
2) They violate the laws of conservation of momentum and energy in that they can be seen changing direction at near 90 degrees to accelerate into the path of a test particle travelling at near c. It was also never explained how they managed to slow down when they first reached earth. The enegies required for these accelerations and decelerations are more than enough to affect things at a macroscopic scale as demonstrated by the energies required for the particle accelerators on earth and E=mc^2.
3) They can apparently "see" these test particles travelling at near c, approaching so as to enable them to plan an intercept.
4) They can "see" macroscopic entities. How? They cannot use light as they are too small to be affected by rays in that part of the spectrum.
Maybe they can use gravity to "see".
@@lianghao7128 There are fundamental limits relating wavelength, time and resolution for any sort of wave that make that impossible even in theory (It's why gravitational wave detectors have to be so big)
I don’t think the show failed to do anything at all. It was fantastic. Anyone that has any sense or knowledge about xenobiology or alien life would know that there’s no reason to compare humanity to aliens. Two totally independently species with very little overlapping things in common. The audience watching the show shouldn’t assume anything because this is an alien species far far away.
Very well structured video. Nice and concise and to the point! Well done!
Tx, much appreciated!
THe adaptation didnt forgot to say that the Trisolarans are small fish in the universe. It is done at the end of the second book.
She didn't say they forgot, she said that was lost.
If there is a season 2 it may be found 😂
They are not small fish lmfao
I wouldn't say they forgot. This is kind of a revelation when Luo Ji starts the Deterrance Era. It's in line with the sequence of events from the books, at this point Earth believes the trisolarians are peak civilization.
Sure they are. They just started their very first experiment with the 4th spatial dimension when they build the Sophons. Only a few hundreds years ahead of humans. It's clear by the end of the series that there have been many civilizations in the Universe that have access to all 11 spatial dimensions; Each dimension adding an order of magnitude more complexity and power than the ones below it.
@@zachstober767 yeah they are.... it's just that humans are even smaller
Many of the criticisms levelled at the show and the books mistakenly assume that TBP is supposed to be "hard" science fiction, when it's actually a fantasy sci-fi story like Star Wars and should be judged as such. Development of Sophons is explained to require actual physical manipulation of higher dimensions. This is so incredibly advanced and disparate from the rest of the San Ti story line that we have to assume the author consciously decided that he wasn't going to even try to maintain internal consistency and just tell what he believed was a cool story. So don't try to pick apart the story for its science -- it's fantasy sci-fi and no more.
What constitutes “hard” and “soft” sci-fi is quite relative, but I completely resent your characterization here. For one, Star Wars is neither hard nor soft Sci-Fi, it’s full-on fantasy. That’s not just my opinion, Lucas himself admits this. People call it Sci-Fi just because it’s set in space and uses futuristic-looking gizmos, but it doesn’t really attempt to explain its events or its tech using science (theoretical or otherwise). And not to mention the entire narrative is centered around a supernatural element. Jedi are literally just Space Wizards. Their powers are magic. Not even like “I’m using 120% of my brain” pseudoscience. It’s full blown fucking magic lol
If u don't like it don't watch it. No one forcing you. 😂 Jealous baby🍼
Great Video!!!
Thank you for a great, succinct explanation of a few questions I had. And although I really enjoyed the show, these are all things that made me think they could defeat us and put us back into the stone age before even arriving. And all it would have taken is a few minutes in the show, like literally the length of your video or less. Which you also made to get right to the point. Well done.
Thank you. Much appreciated!
How could an Alien race the size of a grain of sand build a fleet of ships?
Machines
Tiny ships.
It's just another scale. Obviously the ships don't need to be human scale.
And anyway, humans build stuff much bigger than we are, so where exactly do you see the problem?
I agree - the size of the brain roughly correlates among differing species with the number of neuron connections which then also correlates with memory and capacity for learning. To suggest that aliens the size of grains of sand can become more technologically advanced than us is also to suggest that ants could do the same.
Nanomachines, Son!
The Trisolarans used the sophons to mess with Thomas Wade’s jet. They did that specifically to show him that they are in control. So, I believe the sophons can do a lot more than what we know. Don’t forget each sophon is basically a super artificial intelligence.
i was under the impression that they forced hallucinations on him making Wade think that his plane was having issues.....considering the speech and the dead body she spoke of. I think this was lost in translation but the fact that the jet viewed from the outside seemed perfectly fine and no warning lights were lit meant it was just a visual thing, just like the clocks seen in the eyes.
If the sophons can decrypt a hard drive and enter a virtual reality game and hack every display to display things then yes they are capable of hacking into cars as well.
In the book, the sophons was running at the speed of light, displaying information on the human retina.
Love the narrator's voice. I thought it was part of the show.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's an AI voice.
Either way, it makes the channel. 🍻
It's an AI called pi. If I'm not wrong, it's the 4th or 5th voice from the list. It's almost frightening how realistic their voices are.
@yadhuareji wow, really. The voice sound so real.
I'm subscribing to look forward to your 3 body problem videos! Or any sci-fi contents
I'm pretty sure it has more to do with the fact that there are only 2 sophons and their capabilities are limited due to opportunity cost, they can only do so much at any one time. Due to that, they have to prioritize targets.
Also, we humans are good at fighting cancer, not great, but we can cure many cancers.
So focusing one sophon on killing one particular person instead of spying or sabotage would be quite an extreme measure.
it might take a sophon a mere moment. They can also blind drivers and pilots and apparently do projections the size of earth. maybe blinding the world is an option or block sunlight.
I feel like what the Trisolarians are doing makes perfectly sense. They are on a one-way trip to earth and bound to that destination almost. They do not have enough resource to scout somewhere else, so every step has to be cautious, especially since they have learned about human history and our tendencies PLUS they have troubles interacting with other species due to them not being able to really read in-between the lines since another being that can think "abstactly" and does not share a hive-mind with them, is too unpredictable for them. They also cannot lie, only withhold information humans could potentially cause them to involuntarily leak unwanted information if they keep up conversations, which they might have to do anyway to make sure that humans don't fall into said "last resort self-destruct" mode.
Hmm. Since sophons can make people see whatever the San-Ti want them to see, that should already be game over. Just make everyone permanently blind or make every digital display always display nothing.
oh heving only watched the series this does really clear things up for me. thank you to explain.
I think that videos like this will help the showrunners as they work through season 2
The show stepped up the ability and powers of sophons far more than the books, which is not a good choice. It opens loopholes.
Can you do a video on things the show does differently than the books and another video on things they could consider doing differently?
why does the video thumbnail text say "why sophons can't destroy us?" that's not a question. shouldn't it say "why sophons can't destroy us" without the question mark, or "why can't sophons destroy us?" which IS a question
Hehe, good point :)))
My bad there.
Wtf? I'm not a native English...but that is any difference on this? And i read your comment like 6 times to try understand
The question is why do the aliens reveal their hand? Why reveal to the humans the existence of the sophons (a powerful sentient computer the size of a proton)? If they had kept that information hidden, the wallfacer project would never exist.
I mean they don't know how to lie so maybe that's why idk
Trisolarans do not possess the ability to lie or deceive, unlike humans. One could argue that in certain situations, the need to lie is unnecessary to conceal one’s intentions, (hide ones hand) per say. It’s also intriguing that the entity revealing the existence of their Sophons is Sophon itself-a sentient AI. It remains unclear in the show whether Sophon possesses the ability to deceive, given its origins from the Trisolarans.
If humans lacked a particular quality or emotion, could they intentionally imbue it into an AI? Perhaps theoretically possible, but ethically questionable. When creating a sentient AI, it’s essential for it to operate within laws comprehensible to its creators. Introducing an unfamiliar quality could jeopardize communication and understanding, potentially rendering interaction with the AI difficult or even perilous.
Moreover, there seems to be no motive for Sophon or the Trisolarans to hide their power, in fact it is the opposite given that the Trisolarans want to instill fear in humans and break their science. Humans were already aware of the Trisolaran’s ability to monitor human existence; they simply lacked insight into their method of perception. Consequently, the revelation of the Sophons’ existence, along with their mode of operation, carries minimal significance as humans lack the knowledge to replicate or even understand them.
While these arguments align with my perspective, they may ultimately be subject to critique or dismissed as a result of poor writing. You decide.
@@minaahmed340 and that's another thing that had me scratching my head. They claim they don't know how to lie but yet know how to project lies and hallucinations to humans to the point that those humans delete themselves. The aliens know how to manipulate sub-atomic particle results to stifle human progress. That's a falsehood they're already doing. These are the inconsistencies I picked up from the show.
@@bjo004they had input from humans to create these plans and were told what would scare and divide people. In my opinion, the show is not very clear about how much of the confusion created by the sophons is the planning and handiwork of the ETO
@@Fablessss But since the Sophons are sentient wouldn't they learn to lie a deceive once in contact with humans? While i have not read the books the show captivated me and i did some research. It seems that they are capable of learning
Cool video, your voice/narration has a sort of creepy vibe to it!! In a good way!
I never read the book, only heard about it. I loved the show! Can’t wait for season 2.
THE STABLE ERA OF 3 BODY CONTENT CONTINUES
I don’t think the show failed at portraying the santi as a small fish so much as they chose not to do that, just like in the books they start off as the big bad guy before we learn more about the universe, it’s just the first season they don’t even know about the dark forest yet
Great video. It is lost on a lot of watchers that the Sophons are not weapons. They are pure EW and psychological warfare based. And I think a lot of that involves the technology being inherently dangerous, givin both escalation problems and the fact that the microverse is dangerous... having already destroyed the Trisolarian capital once in revenge for messing with their domain. Add in the fact that on the galactic scale, the trisolarians are more of a hiding civilization than a cleansing one, and it makes sense. I believe The Dark Forest seasons will explain this much better.
The critique of the unexplained limitation of the sophon is correct, very well explained as I had forgotten from when I had read the book. But not about the limitations of trisolarans as an alien species in the dark forest context. That also in the TBP book was unexplained, only comes in the Dark forest, so we have to wait for that. It is an extremely hard narrative to put on tv or film so I understand they might fail in some parts
By the end of the season i was left with the overwhelming impression that the aliens aren't trying destroy or conquer humanity, they are trying to unite and/or encourage the technological growth of humanity through the threat of a common enemy, this is either the case or a really bad job was done and a there's is fact a bunch of plot holes.
Having not read the books, and having only seen the show, I could say that the aliens are pushing humanity to learn and grow in an attempt to have humanity one day come pick them up off their uninhabitable world. The trisolarins can't lie.. says who? The trisolarins?
2 things.
-You can tell from the first few episodes and the characters actions... There are plot holes aplenty.
-This is from the same show runners that brought you Game of Thrones. They have already made quite a few... choices with the source material.
Overall, the show is extremely palatized for a Netflix audience.
Thank you so much for this ! Please do more videos like this on Hard science fiction! ( or SiFi in general! The pitch, the delivery, the background music, yes the accent makes it seem effortless, keep them videos coming)
Thank you. Will do. I can see people love these.
Already writing the next video on dark forest hypothesis. Will be up tomorrow or on Friday.
@@BlizzPort awesome I’m looking forward to that !
What's your source for the background music?
New video is up.
Thought you'd wanna know :)
Oh, that's from the show. Just type in search 3 body problem ost.
To be fair that is a difficult to pack that level of detail in 8 episodes.
Hopefully we get further seasons to fully realize the Santi/Trisolarans limitations.
As well as properly delve into the even bigger issue they are trying to hide from in the Dark Forest.
I will be honestly this has really drawn me into looking into the series,
This actually answered a lot of my questions. Does that mean the hack that said you are bugs on every screen all at once was done by a human as well?
That is actually how they repel the invasion at the end, with the MAD communication
Simply because its just the first season.
In the 2nd and 3rd books, there you will find out how small fry the Trisolarians are, there are civilazations many times over more powerful than they are that a destruction of a small quadrant of a galaxy is just a mere nuisance, a chore that is insignificant and yet one may need to accomplish. For Earth which is just a bug for them, the most cost effective measure of solution may suffice, with as minimal disruption as possible to their day to day lives. A mundane occurence for a Type 3 civilization.
Nicely explained, thanks.
First, congratulations for the initiative on explain the sófons powers and limits.
About the atempt of the terrorist to kill the person who would be an wallface, I have a question which I coud not respond reading the book many times: how coud the terrorists or the Trisolarians possibly know that guy would be a problem for them in a future? Or did the trisolarians tried to kill all the others wallfacers, feeling to be important to neutralize all of them? This part of the book/series did not make sense to me.
So, please, if someone can clarify this point I will apreciate. Please forgive my poor english.
But all this dark forest stuff you are talking about hardly hasn't been talked about in the show, because the show is set mostly in the first book. They will probably explain all this galactical/cosmical hierarchy and other stuff in later seasons.
I think the overstating of san-ti powers and tricking viewers into thinking they can do much more is a clever way to make viewers of the show think in a similar way to the ETO, that these aliens are gods. This would set up nicely for a twist (or realisation) in series two, that they are far from gods, they are hardly even the angels in wenjie’s joke.
Season 1 of the Netflix adaptation may not have delved deeply into the intricacies of the Sophons' capabilities, but it's important to recognize the constraints of storytelling within a single season. The series prioritized establishing the foundation of the narrative, introducing key characters, and setting the stage for future developments. I believe that the Sophons' abilities and their significance will be further explored in Season 2, especially with the introduction of the Wallfacer project and the exploration of the dark forest theory.
Additionally, it's worth noting that the Sophons themselves are enigmatic and manipulative entities. It's unlikely that they would openly disclose the extent of their powers to Earthlings, especially if it undermines their strategic advantage. Therefore, while Season 1 may not have provided a comprehensive explanation of the Sophons' capabilities, it's reasonable to expect that future seasons will delve deeper into this aspect of the story.
ChatGPT TwT but yeah
Hello there. Thanks for the video. One finger typing this on my phone :) I like the brainwork in this story. I have not read the books (yet). I try to understand the sophon CGI in the show. Sophon being basically a proton is supposed to be a spyware for Santi. Meaning their purposes isn't to interract with matter is it? If so, how can it temper with the collider. Back to the visuals... so they expanded the proton by unlocking N dimension. They installed a computer on it and then they folded the dimensions back? What is the mirror sky curtain supposed to be? Sorry, for my bad English.
I'm not sure if the sophon was actually being used and programmed with the purpose of interfering with the collider results. My impression was that there was a fundamental property of the sophon that humans were not aware of and it disrupted the results simply by its presence, not by executing some sort of function. This is why they cannot permanently alter the results.
Kinda silly that the Tri-Solarians can open up a proton to the size of a planet, build super computers within that structure, wrap it up and then shoot it to earth at near the speed of light... Why didn't they wrap up their entire fleet into a sophon and then unwrap it in orbit? to build the super computer inside the proton means they can introduce 3 dimensional objects into N dimensional space so they've effectively already discovered a way to travel at 99% of the speed of light.
In the first book, if I remember well, they say exactly that: that they can't build circuits inside the opened proton. Instead they manipulate the strong nuclear force in the now 2d membrane of the proton to create the circuits. And that took a LOT of time for them.
Context and decent writing goes out the door very quickly in a David Benioff and D. B. Weiss production.
What Voice AI do you use? It sounds good, wanna try it out
Messing up particle accelerators, spying on the whole world and instant communication was already pretty overpowered.
I really don't get why the showrunners decided to expand the list and invite new plot holes just for a few seconds of visual candy.
True. They were all over the place with sophons.
My whole question watching the show was = what is telling scientists that anything that any research that they will conduct from now on will give real and correct results ? If the aliens manipulated reality ? Which led me to : why did they think that sending will in the space would work ? Or on the contrary, how can they be sure that it didn’t work ? But apparently all those answers are in the other books and will be solved in the next seasons so i can’t wait
My issue is that sophons just don’t behave in conjunction with actual quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement does not allow for information transfer, or transfer or any kind, it just makes a mirror set of particles, which only continue to mirror each other while in this state, once either changes the symmetry is broken.
I always felt this was a mistake on the part of the Trisolarians. Why tip your hand? They could just as easily not said anything. The only explanation was hubris, or perhaps since they (at the time) didn't understand deception, they simply didn't know they SHOULDNT tell their plan wjen asked
Even if you don't understand deception, you can't not not understand information.
People can't act on information they don't have. Expending energy to give your enemy information is a very silly goose approach to your own anti-extinction plan.
They control the narrative by speaking when they did. They learned we can lie, which means the government could lie to its own people, using the productivity of an ignorant population while slowly breaking the truth to them. By revealing themselves to everyone and then telling the truth of Sophons, the people panic wanting to know whats up and the government can't reassure them knowing the enermy is listening.
That's another thing as well. How can a species evolve intelligence without deception? I know that the trisolarans are kinda like ants and do everything collectively but still
One thing that's been bugging me since watching this:
They want Saul to die, so they instruct their followers to assassinate him. But he's on a plane in the same episode when they show the San-ti take over Wade's plane and cut it's power.
Why didn't they just make Saul's plane crash?
I think that they did not want to kill any humans directly... Because that could make humans make a lot...a lot of efforts to have leaders and scientists under huge security...maybe all best minds to live underground for decades...
They didn't bugged the plane, they made the Director has a illusion. They can't kill direct people that's why they need other humans traitors
The show has "Galadrield" the Sophons. For the non readers of the book I think. The true nature of the Dark Forest is unrevealed and that out there there are species that are so far beyond the Tri Solarans as to them they are lower entropy lifeforms, by beings that have destroyed dimensions and changed their race into a new form of life to then exist in a lower dimension. Humans are literal microbes. They're going to try and drop existential dread on the shows audience big time.
With D&D at the helm, I'm confident they're going to ruin the show anyway. They just can't help themselves.
They will probably go into the San-ti and dark forest the next season. I think they did a good job in explaining things for what it was
How do humans calculate the trajectory of the alien ships ? So as to make the launch at the Cape Canaveral? How do they even know where aliens come from and their route/trajectory ?
To understand Sophon, take this quizz:
Imagine you want to take over a remote island inhabited by ants. Only thing you can do is to send a tiny robot which can interfere with ant's smell.
You want to wipe out the ants but do not want alert the ants into frantic mode leading to total destruction of the island.
How are you going to program this robot?
I wohld make them think they smell land and food out in the ocean and smell predators/ocean everywhere on land. Maybe others have a better answer?
Well, if some of the ants offer help to me, I would accept the help
Im going to start by not telling the ants I'm here and consider them insects. Even if I dont know how to lie, I know what happens when others dont have the same information i do. Which is by the way, the basis of lying.
Just finished the 2nd book (The Dark Forest), never been so depressed before
So how they achieved instant comunication with the leader on earth? If instant communication was possible they could have achieved way more things. They showed they were able to reproduce high tech with the visors, surely other types of tech could had been reproduced to further their goal.
What do the trisolarans look like? Since they can dehydrate, i presume they are like superintelligent tardigrades all quantum entangled like their sophons. I still need to read the other two, but this is what i imagine so far.
In canon they probably are similar to humans in terms of internal biology and size. They want to preserve the Planet and think it is a paradise because of its stable orbit and good ecosystem.
In non canon, they are very small.
@@gioilcreatore3547wow thanks! I just got the other two books. Time to read!
The Trisolarans being heavily outmatched on the galactic scale isn't something that's revealed until Luo-ji has his epiphany about the dark forest.
The Chinese version of the series, perhaps, offers a greater level of detail with regard to this type of thing, althout it probably can miss on other points. It's available with English subtitles as well. 30 great episodes, of amazing quality and great acting and slightly different cultural feeling. There are little differences in explaining the timeline of events and other points like the video game and more and it's a great production as well. No idea why Netflix had to compress it all in 10 eps. Anyway, I didn't read the book but I can tell that watching both versions was definitely no waste of time. The book must be amazing.
And it's dreadfully boring and weirdly shot and acted.
I understand your point, it's clearly a different cultural setting so it might seem weird for many of us who do not live in China. But acting is actually great. It's all subjective anyway. :-D
Ive read book one after really enjoying the show. You are right that science is much better done in the book, but the show focuses more on interesting characters which I prefer. The book characters feel shallow with the exception of Ye Wenjie. Also I prefer the show's decision of not giving us a trisolarian's perspective.
It would be a lot easier for them if we'd just got rid of ourselves...
"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
well the fact that the trialarians or however you spell them, only a small fish in a big pond is not meant to be known yet in the series and will only be discovered in later seasons. like how the book did.
Biggest flaw: if wallfacers are having an advantage not being read their thoughts and so on…why? Trisolarans could literally refine the issue, via connecting their sophon with trisolaran csndidate and refining the process and later in real time, share the update to sophon on Earth snd voila, sophons can read minds, thoughts and connect tohuman mind, and wallfacers are done, humanity is done. If not possible, this possibilty should be explored and explained why not. Otherwise, it is s huge plot hole.
It's far from being a large plothole (the amount of "plothole" messages in threads like this one is insane. Is there a nitpicking award that you all fight over? ;-) ).
The answer is that for all their internal n-dimensional supercomputer complexity, they are just 2 single Protons. Their physical effect in our 4D daily experience is miniscule, literally sub-atomic.
The Sophons can "do" almost nothing. Messing up scatter diagrams and exciting photo-sensitive cells in the eye is about all they can do - apart from communicating.
And even communicating is hard. You need more than a single proton to build a wifi hotspot.
They would need a special adapter and a lot of effort to manipulate that single loudspeaker Evans uses to communicate. Somehow amplifying proton motions to signal. And using some miniscule effect to communicate back.
It can't be a direct wifi/mobile connection because that single proton doesn't have the energy or 4D spacetime presence to establish a wifi protocol.
@@oerthling agreed. The Trisolarians used up all their resource to built those 4 sophons. They are on a one-way trip almost to earth. They couldn't and cannot afford to "experiment" and invest more resource into that. If someone would find out that their thoughts would be read, they might as well cause a global scaled panic where we all self-destruct. We are already butthurt and cannot ineract with each other on earth with our resource disputes. We are all fighting over it because of the mere concept of money.
Knowing mankind's history and potential tendencies, they have to be extremely cautious with their actions, especially since they cannot read our minds.
The trilogy has been awarded for reasons, the author studied physics, he's not a stupid person. On the internet, everyone can critique but refrain from jumping to conclusions too fast. Any critique is welcome though, but don't label it as a prophet's ultimate statement.
In the book Sophons could only project images on retina and mess up accelerator experiments. No hallucinations, so mass hacking of every device. Those were B&W inventions.
AI Pi voice is wild
Theoretically though, sophons could manipulate electrons and thus alter electronics and potentially affect macroscopic objects
Sophons don't need to destroy us. We can do that ourselves...
Kadashev scale means nothing in a dark forest scenario. Following it guarantees being noticed by level 2
My only problem with the Sophons is the old "Villain speech explaining the plan". they could just relesead the sophons to hinder mankind and never tell a thing. easy win.
That's the flaw in the show and the book
I think the answer to that is that they cannot grasp the concept of withholding truth, so when they speak directly, they tell all. However, their human acolytes are quite capable of withholding the truth.
@@wisdomfox857From what I remember, in the book they did not tell their plan to the enemy, just to the ETO, and that was only *before* they learned about the concept of deception. After they learned about deception, they stopped talking altogether except to say “you are bugs.” Humanity learned of their plans when they seized the intel from the ETO. So, in the book, their primary mistake was not protecting the ETO and thus allowing the intel to fall into enemy hands. In the show, they tried to make revealing the knowledge as dramatic as possible and tried to justify it by saying that the Trisolarans were trying to “teach (us) fear” for some reason.
What about the scene where the guys plane temporarily turns off and starts crashing?
In the show, the sophons were portrayed as such a strong technological advadcement that were already on earth, pretty much able to manipulate anything and everything.. and they said the sophons could also expand at will and endlessly, and expand so much as to cover earth completely..
so, sophons can quite easily just wipe everyone on earth by just going inside people and expanding.. can they not? lol
From watching the show, I got the idea that the Sophons examined our civilisation and decided we did not pose a threat unless our technology greatly increased, they had had projected how long that would take from current progress and decided we needed some slowing down. I also was of the impression that they liked some humans and didn't want to destroy the planet so didn't do something drastic like cover the earth in a blanket Or possibly we are food, If humanity are bugs, Trisolarns are the Birds. Or maybe the goal isn't war with humanity but to evolve it hoping that humanity will unite around a common threat. Maybe without that they would destroy themselves and the planet before they arrive. That would suck. Loved the series and the mystery of it. Though I have kinda ruined that now by watching videos like this.
I find it amusing how ETO or Sophons could hack 3 cars to remote control them couldn't do the same with a business jet on the next scene 🛩️
Very convenient 😂
3 basic cars vs one of the most important/protected humons jet on the planet.
But the San-ti said it themselves, they don't want to kill Wade, they want to meet him, and have a place form him when they arrive.
its not " convenient" you just didn't understand, usually its the problem when people talk about "plotholes"
@@legendary2342 I didn't mention a plot hole, just that it is a weak plot.
What could be expected differently from such a prominent space warfare series featuring adversaries possibly resembling ants in size? Saul, their prime target and eventual extinction catalyst, was also on a plane. The conflict could have been resolved rather than perpetuating propaganda and a feeble storyline, as it stands currently.
But I hope you enjoyed, because I think Netflix will have this gone before next season.
"Why can't Sophons destroy us?"
Your original is a statement failing to be a question.
I was wondering if the san ti would have had a better option for relocation than the solar system, then checked the closest star distance from earth, it is Proxima Centauri which is part of a 3 body system and 4.2 light years away. Proxima centauri has an orbit of 550000 years around both alpha centauri A and alpha centauri B, there are few candidate for habitable planets in that system and although it is a 3 body system, proxima orbit Alpha A and B in a stable manner from a safe distance which doesn't influence it's local planets. There is no chaos or stable era, everything always stabilize itself at some point. I feel better knowing that.
In the series the Trisolarans are from a system ~4 light-years away. In this case the Proxima Centauri system is a 3-body solar system, rather than the Binary + spare we have. Basically, the Solar System was the Trisolarans' best option as we were the closest.
Why didn't the San-Ti use the sophon technology to create a form of warp technology for travel? Then they could settle anywhere they can travel, as long as conditions and existing life forms permitted their settlement. Of course, they may have actually used the same tech to stabilize their planet by making shrinking the two smaller stars and using them for fuel in either spaceship (which would have a rudimentary Alcubierre drive or star drive, or even for their energy sources!
What I don't get is how the Sophons can make people hallucinate or how they even interact wit the world at all... Like, how did they make the whole universe blink to humans, or what can they do exactly, how can they change the results of physics experiments. I think the show may have introduced problems, IDK, they don't explain anything... Didn't read the books.
Edit: I did understand that most of the work was done by humans, but still, how can 2 sentient AI the size of a protons make people hallucinate all those things? How does it talk to people or make countdowns appear before their eyes?
As I understood it, Sophons can take their primal form, which is a membrane roughly the size of Earth on which Trisolarans at the beginning etched digital circuits, before collapsing it down to subatomic scale. But while in this form, it can't do much, other than project images like black sky (essentially hiding the stars behind it). This is a hard sci-fi element, if based on science, it's very loosely based.
I think that with so much effort the Trisolarans put in these sophons they could have built a space station as large as a planet (like the sophons in the other dimensions) and could happily line on that station on a stable orbit around their suns (bigger radius).
@@somaf74 we wouldn't have a story
@@somaf74they already have things like that, and they are excellent at surviving, but they dream of a paradise planet. They don’t want to simply keep existing
@BlizzPort yes, once I learned about the Sophons, my assumption was that they either unfolded and refolded in quick succession, or unfolded and then transitioned from transparent to opaque the way we can do with fancy windows by running electric current through them.
Either way, this would explain why none of the space telescopes picked up the flickering night sky, because they would be all on the other sudee of the unfolded sophon.
I understand why they changed it from the CMB to the night sky in the show. People with little scientific literacy would not know what the cmb is, so the show would have to spend time on exposition talking about it and that would drag the show for most of the audience.
I think the You are bugs hack being attributable to the sophons is a huge corner painting for the show. If the sophons can do that. They can completely shut down all technology on earth.
In the eps 3 "Destroyer of Worlds", Isaac Newton & Alan Turing created a biological computer system with 30m soldier to calculate / predict or chaotic eras. My qus is, is it possible to calculate / predict using only humans acting as 1 or 0 and provide the answer (with little to no margin of error)?
The game wasn't about predicting stable eras. But to answer your questions the San-ti home star system is actually based of alpha centauri the closest solar system to our own which also has three stars like the san-ti home world, it's based of a n-body problem equation that basically states that for three bodies moving in space it would be impossible to calculate their movement (I'm paraphrasing here) because of how many variables there are so yeah the three body problem is impossible to solve with modern technology and the San-ti knew that.
No, it isn't. Jin showed how their computer model failed by speeding up time and showing a Chaotic era happening before predicted. While you could build a cpu with humans as depicted, it would be slow as F compared to even archaic computers from the 1940's.
IRL, it's stupid to build a "human" computer. it won't works, or just stupid method. We use transistor to build computer b'cos electricity is fast and rarely get error. If you have large amount of calculation to do, abacus is the real human computer.
It isn't stupid actually, the trisolarans of that era could communicate at the speed of light using their bodies, this was explained somewhere, I think it was explained in the chinese version of in one of Quinn's Ideas youtube video.
ah...i was pretty familiar with the overall plot before watching the tv series. i was confused at how the santi controlled the car.
I didn't understand the thing about multidimensions and Shopons when San-TI was explaining the Shopons
Does the book really put the San-Ti / Trisolarians as full Kardashev 2 civilization? If so, why then do they not just move 1 of the stars (with their planet) out of the trinary system? Using Shkadov thrusters to move stars should be possible to a type 2 civilization.
I doubt they consume the entire output of a star, so I guess they're close to Type 2, but not quite.
Type 2 should indeed be able to move a star. But enough to escape the gravity of other two stars? I'm not sure. They'd probably have to move all 3 stars in opposite directions for a very long time...
The gravitational pull of the stars would be far greater than any thruster, and the thrusters would probably fall into another star eventually too just like the other planets.
It should only be necessary to move 1 of the stars, but if not, then you would only need to move 2. Put your star thrusters on 1 star to move it into a closer orbit to the other, and the other thrusters on your current star to move it farther out.
Turn the aystem into essentially a double binary, were 2 stars are close that they orbit eachother as a binary system, and the 3rd star is far enough away that it orbits the other 2 as if they are 1 star. Similar to how Apha Centauri actually works.
Remember that gravity Is a weak force. Would the mirrors need constant monitoring and adjustments to keep them in thebproper locations? Sure, but thst would be true even for moving a solitary star.
@@spamfilter32 How would you get the mirrors there in the first place? They’d be thrown out of their orbits before it was completed. And where would they get the mass? Trisolaris doesn’t have any other planets because they were all consumed by the stars or thrown into space like Trisolaris will be.
@saucevc8353 you get them there the same way you keep them in place. With propulsion systems. It's not rocket science. Oh wait.
Mutual assured destruction is Cold Warr nuclear weapon doctrine.
Yep, it's also called a nuclear deterrent.
It works in space too, and is one reason why Dark Forrest failed to hold up in the long run.
@@spamfilter32 Dark Forrest is a failed concept because of immensity of the universe and short time period of ”civilisation” until selfdestruction.
@@spamfilter32
No, it isn’t, because you won’t know if the other side has pressed the button until it’s too late and it’s almost impossible to intercept a light speed object.
@@requiemlul3140 MAD isn't about being able to intercept the RKV's sent towards you. It is about being able to send your own back in retaliation. If they can retaliate, you never strike first. MAD works, or humans would already be extinct.
aren't all San-Ti connected? .. they all share the same thoughts?...then how / why did one of them warn us not to answer?
(or was it another alien species?? or I miss understood the San-Ti way of collective thinking)
I need to know what happens with the staircase project.
My problem with the sophons is that, while they make the plot move along, they also undermine one of the main pillars of the Dark Forest theory. FTL communication really lessens the chain of suspicion.
Also trisolarans could solve all their own problems by unfolding sophons to control the amount of starlight getting to their own planet. They can block signals leaving earths sun. Ect
After the Trisolar Syzygy ripped the planet in half, the Trisolarins realized that getting scorched was the least of their problems. The planet ultimately falling into one of the Suns or careening into deep space, I believe, were the ultimate concerns.
Anyway, why do you say FTL communication undermines the COS? I don’t quite understand.
It’s worth pointing out that the Trsolarans doomed themselves the minute they crippled Humanity’s particle physics research. The Trisolarans predicted that Humanity would reach their level of technological sophistication in less than 400 years; so Humans and Trisolarans could have worked together to fix the unstable orbit of Trisolaris.
That's the star trek dream 😢
The Trisolarans are not a Type-II civilization. Not even close. A Type-II civilization is synonymous with possessing a full Dyson sphere’s worth of available power, which Trisolaris certainly does not.
Type 2 doesn't require a Dyson sphere. It only means the civilization can harness energy equal to the star's output. How they do it is irrelevant. But you're right, they're not exactly Type 2, but I think they're close. There's no way a Type 1 would be able to create something like Sophons. Not in a million years.
@@BlizzPort I mean, how much energy does it take to manipulate a single proton? The Kardashev scale only deals with energy, not technological sophistication.
Even if they're a type 2 civilization it doesn't mean they'd be able to invent everything a type 2 civilization can. They're very disadvantaged in their system.
@@BlizzPort they have enough tech advantage to shock and awe us, but even they admit we could overtake them in 400 years. So I guess we’re not that far apart technologically.
@@fanghur From the series, when the Sophon was explaining how they were made:
"We summon energies you cannot imagine and focus them on a single proton."
So the Trisolarans used a LOT of energy, a complex arrangement of energy, or both.
dd u use Pi Ai?
i didnt understand where the glasses came from
"The trisolarian are merely a small fish in a vast cosmic ocean, a detail regrettably lost in the TV adaptation"
Nah, must be 100% intentional, and is a part of story unfolding. First we are supposed to think Trisolarians are the end game threat! Because that makes a greater impact when we later start realising that they are small fish.
Yeah, I guess I agree with that.
Me getting confused when I hear the sophons since I for some reason think of the endless space faction.
The show makes clear that the trisolarans aren’t able to lie (or understand lying). Yet they disguise themselves in the VR game as humans. Any comments on this? Thanks for clearing up some of my questions about the sophons specific power.
It was not the trisolarians who made the vr game, but their human allies. Also, in the book, the vr hardware and software weren't super advanced tech, it was just a game that anyone who had the URL could run on their computer. You just needed a normal human made vr gear (glasses and jacket) that you could buy at any store. It's just like if they made a game for Oculus Rift today (the book is from 2008). Another thing to point out is that the trisolarians were actually VERY opposed to sharing technology with their allies.
great explaination. The biggest question I had was why the sophons didnt just assassinate key figures instead of just survieling them.
Why kill them? Only one man for now can cause them problems, the others are all checked by Sophons. There's no reason to take drastic measures now, they have the clear upper hand and humans know that they are nearly hopeless.