AA
Names: AA艾 AAAuntie
First appears in Book 3: Death's End, chapter 17 (Deterrence Era, Year 61 The Swordholder)
Appearances
What you know
Book 3: Death's End
- Ch 17AA is an astronomy Ph.D. who discovered DX3906's planets using one star as a gravitational lens; she became Cheng Xin's liaison, then resigned to run her company.
- Ch 17AA secretly brought police to rescue Cheng Xin from Wade's ambush; she tearfully explained that her call had been faked.
- Ch 19AA is Cheng Xin's friend, who shows her films and takes her to art shows and concerts.
- Ch 29AA is Cheng Xin's cheerful friend who came with flowers for Cheng Xin's new place but was refused entry by sentries.
- Ch 29AA mistakes the mushroom cloud for a volcano and does not yet know what has happened.
- Ch 35AA insisted on accompanying Cheng Xin to the rough resettlement zone and violently defended her from abusive roommates.
- Ch 39AA managed Cheng Xin's company for six years, making it a prominent player in near-orbit space construction, while keeping a youthful, lively appearance.
- Ch 41AA cares about Cheng Xin but is busy and can spend little time with her.
- Ch 45AA's company won a bid to build an even bigger cross in geosynchronous orbit; she is one of Cheng Xin's two real friends.
- Ch 48AA, once an astronomer, attends as Cheng Xin's assistant but is looked down on for her short CV.
- Ch 54She works for Cheng Xin as CEO and is pursuing the Halo Group's involvement in the Bunker Project.
- Ch 54She buys the Common Era soap and uses it to power a paper boat, a demonstration that reveals a meaning in the stories.
- Ch 56AA gained status among IDC committee members after helping with the successful interpretation.
- Ch 58AA is a pragmatic executive of the Halo Group who agrees the company should build lightspeed ships, funded by Bunker Project profits.
- Ch 58AA picks three children to rescue by asking them three puzzle questions, saying competition is necessary for survival.
- Ch 58AA brings a laser rifle to the spaceport, expecting trouble.
- Ch 58AA is a Halo Group employee who defers to Cheng Xin's authority, then disables nearby shuttles by shooting holes in their tail fins with a laser rifle.
- Ch 58AA suspects the alarm is false and tells the children honestly that the Sun is about to turn into a giant firework.
- Ch 58AA is worried Cheng Xin will suffer experiences worse than death if she keeps pursuing lightspeed spaceflight.
- Ch 62She urged Cheng Xin to hand everything to Wade, believing he could succeed where Cheng Xin would be ruined, but refused to work under him.
- Ch 62She went into hibernation with Cheng Xin so they could retake the Halo Group at a moment's notice.
- Ch 67AA is awakened alongside Cheng Xin and, like her, has no idea where they are at first.
- Ch 69AA is skeptical and blunt, says there is no future now, and suggests taking paintings rather than unreadable classics.
- Ch 70AA believes Halo's hull is probably made largely of strong-interaction materials.
- Ch 71AA tells Cheng Xin that blaming herself for the Solar System's destruction is absurd, arguing the war's outcome was uncertain and no better future was assured.
- Ch 71AA discovered DX3906's planetary system over four hundred years ago; this work led her to meet Cheng Xin. She becomes smitten with Guan Yifan.
- Ch 71AA tried repeatedly to wake Cheng Xin and Yifan to report Yun Tianming's arrival, but Hunter's AI refused.
- Ch 72Cheng Xin guesses 艾 AA would carve words into stone, leading to the discovery of the message.
Connections
- ally ofCheng Xinliaison turned company manager
- friend ofCheng Xin
- ally ofFraisse
- member ofHalo GroupCEO working for Cheng Xin
- related toYun Tianminglived a happy life together on Planet Blue; message from both
Key moments
- Book 3 · Ch 17Cheng Xin sells the planets, keeps the star
Awakened to resolve ownership of DX3906, Cheng Xin sells its planets to the UN but retains the star, and hires AA to run her company.
- Book 3 · Ch 17Wade's ambush
Lured to ruined buildings by a faked call, Cheng Xin is shot twice by Thomas Wade, who wants to be Swordholder. Police, with AA, blow off his arm and rescue her.
- Book 3 · Ch 19Cheng Xin's recovery and cultural introduction
While recovering from Wade's attack, Cheng Xin learns how rare murder is. AA shows her a film and takes her to art shows and concerts, where Cheng Xin admires the new culture.
- Book 3 · Ch 19Trisolaran artists revealed
AA reveals that the artists behind the admired films, paintings and music are all Trisolarans, leaving Cheng Xin stunned.
- Book 3 · Ch 21Tea ceremony with Sophon
Cheng Xin and AA visit Sophon's tree house, where Sophon performs a long tea ceremony and hints that women must protect the fragile world together.
- Book 3 · Ch 29Meeting AA
AA runs to Cheng Xin with flowers and asks if the cloud is a volcano. Cheng Xin hides the truth for now.
- Book 3 · Ch 31Sophon confronts Cheng Xin at the crater
Sophon reveals Cheng Xin was kept alive as a safety shield, that Gravity was destroyed, and that Wade would have been feared. She then leaves, telling them to prepare for Australia.
- Book 3 · Ch 35Fraisse's haka
Fraisse performs a true Māori war haka for Cheng Xin and AA and comforts Cheng Xin that her failure was not her fault.
- Book 3 · Ch 35Cheng Xin goes blind and rescues her friends
Cheng Xin faints on hearing the announcement and wakes blind. She speaks to Sophon by phone, asking that AA and Fraisse be evacuated, and refuses to leave herself.
- Book 3 · Ch 39Cheng Xin's hibernation ends
Cheng Xin wakes after six years in hibernation, her retinas restored, and finds the world celebrating and rebuilt after the broadcast.
- Book 3 · Ch 45Cheng Xin's near-suicide
Cheng Xin, distressed by the cult around her, prepares to swallow her last hibernation capsule but is stopped by Fraisse's call and her thoughts of her friends.
- Book 3 · Ch 48First IDC meeting
In a sophon-free room, the IDC convenes to decipher Tianming's message, reviews the conversation's findings, and distributes a blue-covered document containing the three fairy tales.
- Book 3 · Ch 54The soap boat experiment
AA buys a Common Era bar of soap from a museum and makes a paper boat propelled by it. Cheng Xin understands it as a hint at light-speed travel in Tianming's tale.
- Book 3 · Ch 54Silent realization of curvature propulsion
Wary of sophon surveillance, Cheng Xin and AA hide their excitement with idle chat, then silently confirm that the stories point to curvature propulsion.
- Book 3 · Ch 56Curvature propulsion message deciphered
Cheng Xin and AA secretly communicated via eyes and the snow-wave paper clue, concluding Tianming's story meant curvature propulsion. The IDC endorsed this interpretation and recognized Tianming's metaphor system.
- Book 3 · Ch 56Umbrella decoded as speed of light
The IDC recognized the umbrella as a centrifugal governor and, with bearing coordinates, interpreted it as the speed of light, with lowering it linked to the safety notice.
- Book 3 · Ch 56Expedition into the Moskstraumen
After Palermo decoded He'ershingenmosiken as Helseggen and Mosken, the group went to Mosken. They recalled Poe's maelstrom story and crossed into the Moskstraumen, where their boat was caught.
- Book 3 · Ch 56Voyage into the Moskstraumen
Jason takes Cheng Xin's group into the whirlpool, shares a flaming cod supper and talks of death; the helicopter then lifts them out and the boat is swallowed by the eye.
- Book 3 · Ch 58Photoid alarm panic
A window avalanche reports Observation Unit #1 detected a photoid; unconfirmed officially, the public panics and flees to spaceports, causing chaos and crashes.
- Book 3 · Ch 58AA selects three children
At the spaceport, Cheng Xin asks to take stranded space-camp children; AA can take only three and chooses by three puzzle questions.
- Book 3 · Ch 58Launch frenzy and Cheng Xin's refusal
Shuttles launch amid the crowd, killing many; AA prepares to launch first, but Cheng Xin refuses because people are nearby.
- Book 3 · Ch 58AA sabotages the shuttles
During the panic, Cheng Xin refuses to launch, and AA shoots holes in the tail fins of eight nearby shuttles, grounding them so nobody can flee.
- Book 3 · Ch 62Cheng Xin hands over Halo Group and hibernates
After Wade accepted her condition to awaken her if the project becomes dangerous, Cheng Xin transferred her authority. He became Halo Group president, and she and AA entered hibernation.
- Book 3 · Ch 65Cheng Xin and AA return to hibernation
After touring a depopulated Earth, they re-enter hibernation in Asia I for two hundred years, to see the world after the dark forest strike.
- Book 3 · Ch 67Cheng Xin and AA awaken at Jupiter
Cheng Xin and AA are woken on the Halo near Jupiter in Year 67. Cao Bin tells them an attack alert has sounded, though the cities are not hiding.
- Book 3 · Ch 67Despair at the warning center
Cao Bin reveals that the dark forest strike is not a photoid and that the bunker is useless. The warning center's staff are numb with despair.
- Book 3 · Ch 69Federation requests an artifact rescue mission
Cao Bin asks Cheng Xin and AA to take Halo to Pluto to scatter museum artifacts in space and tells them Luo Ji wants to see them. They agree.
- Book 3 · Ch 69Meeting Luo Ji in the museum
Halo lands on Pluto; Cheng Xin and AA enter the monolith and meet Luo Ji, who explains the museum is humanity's tombstone and its history.
- Book 3 · Ch 69Luo Ji reveals the stone-carving tomb
Luo Ji tells Cheng Xin and AA that experts found carving words in stone the only way to preserve information for a hundred million years, and shows them the carved walls and lamps.
- Book 3 · Ch 69Choosing artifacts
In the artifact hall, Cheng Xin and AA remove frames from oil paintings to carry more, including Starry Night. Luo Ji keeps the Mona Lisa for himself.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Neptune and Saturn seen flattened
Stepping onto Pluto's surface, Cheng Xin and AA see Neptune and Saturn collapsed into giant two-dimensional rings, like a pair of eyes in the sky.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Destruction of Europe VI
Via Halo's AI, they watch footage of Europe VI: millions wait weightless, then the city and its people are flattened into a dead 1:1 drawing.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Flattened Earth and giant snowflakes
Cheng Xin, AA and Luo Ji watch the flattened Earth, whose frozen oceans form enormous snowflakes seen by telescope from fifty AU away.
- Book 3 · Ch 70The Sun is flattened
From Pluto, Luo Ji, Cheng Xin and AA watch the Sun collapse into two dimensions and die, followed by Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Luo Ji stays behind
Luo Ji refuses to board Halo and returns to the monolith, insisting Cheng Xin and AA depart on their mission and stay in contact.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Luo Ji reveals Halo's curvature drive
As Halo leaves Pluto, Luo Ji tells the women Halo has a lightspeed curvature engine and that they may go anywhere, explaining the secret program's history.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Luo Ji refuses to leave Pluto
Luo Ji declines to board and, using his authority over Halo, orders curvature propulsion, explaining that the black domain could be formed by lightspeed ship trails, and tells them to find the other survivors.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Solar System flattened
Pluto expands onto the plane and Luo Ji goes into the picture. The last voices fall silent as the Solar System becomes a completed two-dimensional painting.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Halo enters lightspeed
Cheng Xin and AA select DX3906 as destination, and Halo accelerates to lightspeed, leaving the red two-dimensional Solar System behind.
- Book 3 · Ch 71Arrival at Planet Blue
Halo travels 286 light-years to DX3906, follows a landing beacon to Planet Blue, and meets Guan Yifan, who has waited for them.
- Book 3 · Ch 71Guan Yifan explains the two-dimensional Solar System
Yifan tells them the collapsed Solar System is invisible and only detectable by gravity, and offers to take them to his human world.
- Book 3 · Ch 71Journey to Planet Gray aboard Hunter
After the satellite alert, Yifan and Cheng Xin leave AA, dock with Hunter and fly four days to Planet Gray. Yifan reveals dark truths about dimensional strikes and light tombs.
- Book 3 · Ch 71Yun Tianming's arrival announced
Returning to Planet Blue, Cheng Xin and Yifan learn from AA that Yun Tianming has landed with a gift for Cheng Xin, and decide to descend immediately.
- Book 3 · Ch 72Discovery of the carved message and the door
Cheng Xin insists on scanning for writing; Hunter finds fragments of giant carved words from AA and Tianming deep underground. A smart door appears, and the two walk through it hand in hand.