Radar Peak
Names: Radar PeakRed Coast BaseRed CoastRed Coast Project
First appears in Book 1: The Three-Body Problem, chapter 2 (2)
Appearances
What you know
Book 1: The Three-Body Problem
- Ch 2Radar Peak is a heavily guarded military base with a large antenna whose operation causes strange weather, animal panic, nausea and hair loss; sentries shoot intruders without warning.
- Ch 2The base can assign labor to the Construction Corps, such as clearing a warning zone of trees, hinting at its political power.
- Ch 3Red Coast is a top-secret military weapons research project centered on a giant antenna on Radar Peak, claimed to matter more than atomic and hydrogen bombs.
- Ch 3Staff must join the army and be sequestered at the base for long periods; the base has no heating system.
- Ch 9It was recently revealed that Ye Wenjie spent over twenty years at Red Coast Base; rumors about it, from a researcher's book, mostly proved true.
- Ch 11Events at Red Coast are still officially classified, though many people who were there have since told their stories, making them open secrets.
- Ch 12Its staff are top technical officers from the Second Artillery Corps, yet the Transmission Department's equipment Ye sees is primitive, with low targeting precision.
- Ch 12Commissar Lei's cover story: Red Coast is a 25-megawatt microwave 'oven' designed to disable or destroy enemy satellites and space stations.
- Ch 12Ye likes to sit alone at the cliff edge of Radar Peak, the base's most secluded spot.
- Ch 13Top-secret project (code name "Red Coast") to search for extraterrestrial intelligence and attempt contact and exchange; it also planned to transmit messages to stars within 200 light-years.
- Ch 13Planned monitoring covers 1,000–40,000 MHz over 15,000 channels, targeting about 20 million stars within 1,000 light-years of Earth.
- Ch 13Transmission plan: 10–25 megawatts at 2,800, 12,000 and 22,000 MHz toward about 100,000 stars; higher frequencies are minimized so the source is harder to pinpoint.
- Ch 13The message was to be vetted so as not to reveal Earth's coordinates relative to the Milky Way.
- Ch 13A planned Red Coast force was to be formed from within the Second Artillery Corps.
- Ch 14Transmitted using only about one ten-millionth of Earth's available power, so its signal was like a mosquito's buzz; it heard nothing in twenty years of operation.
- Ch 14Had a very high security rating initially because of its decision-maker's foresight; the rating was gradually lowered and the guard reduced from a company to five guards.
- Ch 14Renovated in the early 1980s with automated transmission and two IBM minicomputers able to monitor forty thousand channels; scientific management passed to the Academy's Astronomy Institute.
- Ch 14Later turned to radio astronomy and solar electromagnetic activity research, adding a solar telescope; it was decommissioned in the mid-eighties when funding ran out.
- Ch 22Its transmitter used poor-quality domestic components and needed an overhaul after every fifteenth transmission, followed by a lightly attended test transmission.
- Ch 23After testing and breaking-in, the project ran routinely; its deciphering system had never been used on a real signal until Ye's night shift.
- Ch 25Radar Peak is topped by a thick clay layer, so the ground wire must hang over the cliff edge and be buried below the clay.
- Ch 26Its security rating was reduced in 1980, letting locals come onto Radar Peak outside the base proper.
- Ch 28Ye now realizes its shape resembles a giant ship, which the Judgment Day reminds her of.
- Ch 35The base was dismantled thoroughly; only tall grass remains on the peak, with foundations and roads buried, as if Red Coast never happened.
- Ch 35A tiny stone tablet marks the site as Red Coast Base (1968–1987), placed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1989, more like an attempt to forget.
Connections
- inGreater Khingan Mountains
- has memberYang Weiningchief engineer
- has memberLei Zhichengpolitical commissar
- has memberYe Wenjie
- led byLei ZhichengHolds the final vote on important matters
- part ofSecond Artillery Corpsremained administratively within it
- includesTransmission Department
- includesMonitoring Department
- related toSecond Artillery Corpsplanned force formed from within it
- led byYang Weining
- related toChinese Academy of Sciencesplaced the memorial tablet at the site in 1989
Key moments
- Book 1 · Ch 2Ye copies Bai's letter
Ye returns the book and copies Bai's letter for him because his hands shake; she notices the Radar Peak antenna rising as she leaves.
- Book 1 · Ch 3Ye chooses to enter Red Coast
Lei offers redemption through work; Yang warns she may never leave. Ye insists on entering the base and the gates are shut behind them.
- Book 1 · Ch 3147th Red Coast transmission
Ye witnesses a transmission aimed at target BN20197F; a magnetron burns out, birds fall dead from the sky, and the transmission completes after about fifteen minutes.
- Book 1 · Ch 11Ye Wenjie begins her account
Ye Wenjie says she wants to correct a flawed book about Red Coast, then starts telling Wang about her years there.
- Book 1 · Ch 12Lei explains Red Coast as a microwave weapon
On Radar Peak, Commissar Lei tells Ye that Red Coast is a giant microwave transmitter meant to destroy enemy satellites. Yang interrupts angrily.
- Book 1 · Ch 12Ye moved to Monitoring Department
Ye is transferred to the Monitoring Department, a far more advanced part of the base. Lei tells her its role and says he personally trusts her, over Yang's objections.
- Book 1 · Ch 12The truth about Red Coast revealed
Senior officers and Army Political Department investigators reveal the cover story was a lie. Ye agrees to be told the true nature of Red Coast and Yang explains it.
- Book 1 · Ch 13Red Coast planning and message drafting
Documents show the Red Coast Project's goals, search and transmission plans, and message drafts. Central Leadership rejected a crude first draft and favored a peaceful, carefully composed fourth draft.
- Book 1 · Ch 14Ye recounts the decline of Red Coast
Ye tells Wang Miao how Red Coast was renovated, lost its secrecy and military interest, shifted to solar research, and was finally shut down for lack of funds.
- Book 1 · Ch 22Ye discovers the sun amplifies radio waves
Reading about Jupiter's radio outbursts, Ye matches the 16m42s delay to the sun-Earth-Jupiter geometry and concludes the sun's energy mirrors amplify radio waves.
- Book 1 · Ch 22Secret transmission to the sun
After Lei forbids the experiment, Ye uses a maximum-power test transmission at the setting sun in 1971, tells Yang, and checks for an echo.
- Book 1 · Ch 23Ye receives a message from Trisolaris
On a night shift, Ye notices an intelligent signal rated AAAAA, deciphers a warning not to answer, and spends four hours learning about Trisolaris and its migration plan.
- Book 1 · Ch 23Ye invites the Trisolarans to Earth
Ye conceals the received messages, then at dawn aims the antenna at the sun and transmits for three seconds, asking the aliens to come conquer Earth. She then faints and learns she is pregnant.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Lei confronts Ye over the message
Lei shows Ye the Trisolaris message on his terminal, accuses her of hiding it, and demands silence, offering to protect her husband and unborn child. She realizes he wants the glory of discovery.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Murder of Lei and Yang
Ye sabotages the ground wire so Lei descends the cliff. Yang joins him, and as both climb back up, Ye cuts the rope and they fall to their deaths.
- Book 1 · Ch 35Ye Wenjie revisits Red Coast ruins
Ye climbs Radar Peak alone with a group of visitors, finds the rusted antenna base and a small tablet, looks toward Qijiatun, and watches the sunset at the former base as her strength fails.