Deterrence Center
Names: Deterrence CenterGravitational Wave Universal Broadcast System Control Station Zero
First appears in Book 3: Death's End, chapter 25 (Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:00 P.M. to 4:17 P.M.: Deterrence Center)
Appearances
What you know
Book 3: Death's End
- Ch 25The Deterrence Center lies about forty-five kilometers beneath the Gobi Desert, in the mantle, and is the deepest man-made structure ever built.
- Ch 25It has its own air circulation and a powerful cooling system to withstand mantle temperatures of nearly five hundred degrees Celsius.
- Ch 25Its formal name is Gravitational Wave Universal Broadcast System Control Station Zero; the door bears the UN and Solar System Fleet insignias.
- Ch 25Its lobby walls can act as electronic displays but show only blank whiteness, as the building seems not yet in use.
- Ch 27The Deterrence Center holds a white semicircular hall behind a meter-thick steel door, where the Swordholder sits facing a translucent wall.
Connections
- inGobi Desert
- containsCheng Xin
Key moments
- Book 3 · Ch 25Deterrence authority handover
After a surface ceremony, Cheng Xin descends forty-five kilometers to the Deterrence Center, where the PDC chair and the Fleet chief of staff oversee the final handover of deterrence authority and offer to redecorate the bleak lobby to her taste.
- Book 3 · Ch 27Handover of the Swordholder switch
Luo Ji hands the gravitational wave broadcast switch to Cheng Xin in the white hall, ending his fifty-four-year tenure; no one thanks him.
- Book 3 · Ch 27Luo Ji arrested
In the lobby, Tribunal prosecutors arrest Luo Ji for suspected mundicide; he ignores them and enters the elevator.
- Book 3 · Ch 28Six droplets attack Earth
Early-warning systems detect six droplets approaching Earth at 25,000 km/s with about ten minutes to impact, having hidden just outside the warning zone.
- Book 3 · Ch 28Cheng Xin throws away the switch
Overwhelmed by the weight of life's history and the memory of her baby, Cheng Xin refuses to press the red switch and throws it aside as the droplets close in.