Timeline
What's happened so far
Book 1 The Three-Body Problem
- Ch 1 · 1
Siege of the April Twenty-eighth Brigade
The Red Union attacks the brigade headquarters; a fifteen-year-old girl waving the banner is shot and her body desecrated.
- Ch 1 · 1
Death of Ye Zhetai
At a Tsinghua struggle session, Ye Zhetai refuses to recant; his wife Shao Lin denounces him and four girl Red Guards beat him to death with belts, as Wenjie is held back.
- Ch 1 · 1
Wenjie seeks Ruan Wen
After her father's death and hearing her mother's mad laughter at home, Wenjie wanders to Professor Ruan Wen's door.
- Ch 2 · 2
Bai gives Ye Silent Spring
Bai Mulin shares his sorrow over the felling of a larch, gives Ye a copy of Silent Spring, and says he will write to Beijing about the Corps' destruction.
- Ch 2 · 2
Ye 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.
- Ch 2 · 2
Ye is interrogated
Three weeks later, Director Zhang confronts Ye with the letter signed 'The Revolutionary Masses' in her handwriting. Bai has disclaimed knowledge of it, leaving Ye to take the blame.
- Ch 2 · 2
Ye punished with freezing water
Cheng douses Ye and her blanket with water and leaves her in the freezing cell; Ye hallucinates a flag-waving figure that changes between people in her life, and loses consciousness.
- Ch 3 · 3
Ye Wenjie is flown to Red Coast Base
Ye wakes feverish on a helicopter with Yang and Lei, who debate recruiting her due to a lack of qualified personnel, and she is brought to Radar Peak.
- Ch 3 · 3
147th 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.
- Ch 4 · 4
Wang summoned to the Battle Command Center meeting
After a rude visit from Captain Shi and the police, army officers invite Wang to a meeting where General Chang briefs scholars, police and foreign observers on attacks against scientists.
- Ch 4 · 4
Wang first sees Yang Dong
A year earlier at the Liangxiang site, Wang sees Yang Dong in a striking scene and becomes captivated by her.
- Ch 4 · 4
Wang agrees to join the Frontiers of Science
After Chang dismisses him, Wang argues with Shi, who mocks him and the dead scholars. Provoked, Wang reverses his refusal and agrees to join the Frontiers of Science to prove Shi wrong.
- Ch 4 · 4
Chang's warning about the end of humanity's luck
Chang walks Wang out and tells him that humanity's whole history has been fortunate but that this has ended. Wang then asks the driver to take him to Ding's address.
- Ch 6 · 6
Wang discovers the countdown
Developing his film, Wang finds a countdown from 1,200 hours on every photo, persisting across cameras and rolls but appearing only in pictures he takes himself.
- Ch 6 · 6
Shen tells Wang to stop his research
Wang visits Shen, who is playing 3body.net. She evades his questions and only insists he stop his nanomaterial project.
- Ch 6 · 6
Pan Han confronts Shen
As Wang leaves, Pan Han arrives and warns Shen that someone should not force their hand.
- Ch 6 · 6
Countdown follows Wang
Wang wakes to find the countdown persists in his vision. An ophthalmologist at Tongren Hospital finds nothing wrong and blames stress.
- Ch 6 · 6
Experiment halted
Wang orders the main reaction chamber shut down for maintenance; the countdown stops and vanishes.
- Ch 6 · 6
Wang challenges Shen
Wang phones Shen and challenges her to show the countdown on a larger scale; she agrees, saying the universe will flicker for him between one and five a.m. on the fourteenth.
- Ch 7 · 7
Wang enters the Three Body game
After learning of Yang Dong's mother, Wang uses the lounge V-suit to log in as Hairen and meets King Wen and Follower on a desolate plain.
- Ch 7 · 7
Journey through Chaotic and Stable Eras
The three travel through extreme cold and heat; Follower dehydrates and Wang carries him; they see two flying stars, a Stable Era, then reach Zhao Ge.
- Ch 7 · 7
Rehydration of the world
After King Wen's predicted Stable Era begins, King Zhou orders rehydration and the people revive in lakes, celebrating for eight days.
- Ch 7 · 7
Destruction of Civilization 137
Snow of dry ice and then frozen air buries the pyramid during a 48-year night, and the game ends the civilization and Wang exits.
- Ch 8 · 8
Ye arranges observatory visit
Ye phones her former student Sha Ruishan so Wang can observe the cosmic microwave background, and gives Wang ginseng as he leaves.
- Ch 9 · 9
Seeing the flicker with 3K glasses
Wang borrows 3K glasses at the planetarium and sees the CMB sky pulse irregularly with his own eyes, overwhelming him with dread.
- Ch 9 · 9
Breakdown at St. Joseph's Church
After Shen Yufei refuses to answer him, Wang wanders until dawn, hears a hymn at St. Joseph's, breaks down crying, and is found by Shi Qiang.
- Ch 10 · 10
Da Shi explains his theory
By the Forbidden City moat, Da Shi lays out his theory of a coordinated plan to destroy science, a global military alert against an unknown enemy, and urges Wang to keep working and play Three Body.
- Ch 11 · 11
Civilization 141 burns
After a Stable Era of seventeen days, an immense sun rises and incinerates the world, destroying Civilization Number 141 and Mozi's predictions.
- Ch 11 · 11
Wang visits Ye Wenjie
Wang drives to Ye Wenjie's home seeking comfort; she offers to tell him about Red Coast Base.
- Ch 12 · 12
Lei 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.
- Ch 12 · 12
Ye 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.
- Ch 12 · 12
The 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.
- Ch 13 · 13
Red 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.
- Ch 15 · 15
Copernicus presents the three-sun model
Wang, as Copernicus, tells the medieval council that three suns cause the chaotic and stable eras. They reject it and sentence him to burning.
- Ch 15 · 15
Tri-solar day destroys Civilization 183
A burning knight announces the world has ended. Three giant suns appear, scorching the land and killing the council as Wang watches. The game advances to its second level.
- Ch 16 · 16
Wei Cheng reports a death threat
At Da Shi's office, Wei Cheng tells his life story and reports an anonymous call threatening death unless he stops his three-body research, plus a frightening nighttime encounter with Shen Yufei.
- Ch 16 · 16
Shen Yufei recruits Wei Cheng
Shen Yufei finds Wei Cheng at a temple, recognises his three-body work, and takes him away with promises of computing resources; the abbot warns against it.
- Ch 16 · 16
Wei reveals the argument with Pan Han
Wei tells police that Shen and Pan Han argued in Chinese about the Lord, the commander, and the Adventists and Redemptionists, with Pan threatening to stop her.
- Ch 17 · 17
Newton duels Leibniz
Newton defeats Leibniz in a swordfight over who invented calculus, then introduces himself to Wang while Von Neumann tries to stop the fight.
- Ch 17 · 17
Von Neumann demonstrates logic gates
Before the First Emperor, Von Neumann uses three soldiers with flags to demonstrate logic gates, persuading him to commit thirty million soldiers to a human computer.
- Ch 17 · 17
Qin I is activated
The Computer Formation boots, locks up due to a faulty CPU gate, is repaired by beheading that gate's soldiers, then runs the Three Body 1.0 orbit software and completes its first computation.
- Ch 17 · 17
Tri-solar syzygy destroys the Three Body world
As the first sun rises, the astronomy minister reveals three aligned suns. Their combined gravity lifts everything, including the pyramid, the computer's men and the oceans, into space. Atmosphere is lost and the emperor dies. Civilization 184 ends.
- Ch 17 · 17
Administrator contacts Wang
After Wang logs out, the Three Body system administrator phones, collects his personal details, approves him to continue and invites him to a player meet-up the next night.
- Ch 18 · 18
Three Body players' meet-up
Seven players meet at Yunhe Coffee Shop. Pan Han reveals Trisolaris is real and probes their attitudes toward Trisolaran intervention in human society.
- Ch 18 · 18
Two players expelled
The software vice president and power executive object to welcoming the Trisolarans. Pan Han removes them, then calls the remaining five comrades.
- Ch 19 · 19
Pendulum Initiation Ceremony
At the UN, Wang learns the three-body problem is proven unsolvable and the great rip history. The secretary general announces Trisolaris must emigrate to the stars, and the monument pendulum is started.
- Ch 19 · 19
Great rip destroys Civilization 191
Three frozen flying stars became suns passing within the Roche limit, tearing Trisolaris into two pieces and creating the giant moon.
- Ch 19 · 19
Three Body announces shutdown
Wang logs in again soon after; the game says its servers will shut down and goes directly to the final scene.
- Ch 20 · 20
Launch of the Trisolaran Expedition
Wang finds hundreds of millions of Trisolarans watching the sky. The thousand-ship fleet lights up, accelerates and vanishes in the west, bound for the nearest star about four light-years away.
- Ch 20 · 20
Invitation to the meet-up
Three Body ends and invites Wang to attend an Earth-Trisolaris Organization meet-up in the real world, with the address to follow by e-mail.
- Ch 21 · 21
Pan Han accused at the meeting
At the ETO gathering, Pan admits killing Shen Yufei, argues for purging Redemptionists, and is accused by Rafael and Ye of Adventist betrayal.
- Ch 21 · 21
Execution of Pan Han
Ye declares the Adventists must be dealt with, and a young bodyguard kills Pan by breaking his neck before the crowd.
- Ch 22 · 22
Ye 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.
- Ch 22 · 22
Apparent failure and the signal's departure
No echo is received and Peterson's waveforms don't match, so Ye despairs; unknown to her, the amplified signal is already spreading into the universe.
- Ch 23 · 23
Ye 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.
- Ch 23 · 23
Ye 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.
- Ch 25 · 25
Lei 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.
- Ch 25 · 25
Ye's interrogation
Decades later, Ye confesses to the 1979 killings to an interrogator conducting a criminal investigation and signs the record.
- Ch 26 · 26
Ye returns to Tsinghua
Ye and her father were rehabilitated, and she left Red Coast Base for Tsinghua, where she visited her mother Shao Lin and was coldly warned off by her husband.
- Ch 26 · 26
Meeting the Red Guards
Ye invited three of the Red Guards who killed her father to the exercise grounds, hoping to hear repentance; they came, worn and faded.
- Ch 26 · 26
Ye confronts the old Red Guards
Ye meets three former Red Guards at the exercise grounds. They recount their suffering and refuse to repent, saying they will be forgotten as history. Ye leaves resolved to bring a superior alien civilization to Earth.
- Ch 27 · 27
Ye meets Evans in the hills
While surveying observatory sites, Ye visits the foreigner called Bethune and hears Evans explain his tree planting and Pan-Species Communism. The site is later rejected for human-environment reasons.
- Ch 27 · 27
Evans's forest is logged
Three years later, loggers including officials cut down Evans's forest because it lacks legal protection, though he could stop them with his inheritance.
- Ch 27 · 27
Ye recruits Evans
Responding to Evans's postcard, Ye tells him the Red Coast and Trisolaris story. Evans, despairing of humanity, agrees to join her, saying 'let us be comrades.'
- Ch 28 · 28
Ye arrives at the Second Red Coast Base
Ye is flown by helicopter from Heathrow to the ship Judgment Day in the Atlantic, where about two thousand ETO members await.
- Ch 28 · 28
Evans reveals confirmation and the fleet
Evans tells Ye that Trisolaris replied, confirming her story, and that the Trisolaran Fleet will reach the solar system in 450 years.
- Ch 28 · 28
Ye becomes ETO commander in chief
Ye accepts leadership of the Earth-Trisolaris Movement, and the ETO fighters shout their slogan, formally beginning the movement.
- Ch 29 · 29
ETO factions described
The ETO divides into Adventists, Redemptionists and a rising Survivors faction, each with different motives, and the Adventists and Redemptionists nearly fight a civil war.
- Ch 29 · 29
Three Body game used for recruitment
The ETO develops the Three Body game to spread Trisolaran religion and recruit members, making it the cradle of the Redemptionists.
- Ch 30 · 30
Ye Wenjie's interrogation
Ye explains ETO factions, why Judgment Day isn't attacked, the Trisolaran fleet's slow travel, and reveals the two protons Trisolaris sent to lock human science.
- Ch 30 · 30
Ding Yi explains micro dimensions
After the interrogation, Ding tells Wang about higher dimensions locked in the quantum realm and humanity's insignificance, then declines to say more and suggests drinking.
- Ch 31 · 31
Meeting to plan the capture of Judgment Day
Military officers reject ball lightning, neutron bombs, nerve gas, concussion bombs and infrasound. Shi Qiang proposes a net of Flying Blade filaments across the canal; it is accepted and refined to the Gaillard Cut.
- Ch 31 · 31
Operation Guzheng begins
At the Gaillard Cut, workers raise the hidden filament net as Judgment Day approaches. Wang and Stanton watch from the slope while a walkie-talkie counts down the ship's distance.
- Ch 31 · 31
Judgment Day destroyed by the deadly zither
Judgment Day sails between the steel pillars; the nanofilaments slice crew, engine and hull into slices. The ship crashes into the bank and soldiers and helicopters secure the wreckage while Wang watches.
- Ch 31 · 31
Ye Wenjie interrogated
Three days later, an interrogator questions Ye about her hopes for Trisolaris, tells her Evans died and the Trisolaran messages were captured, and gives her an analysis to read.
- Ch 32 · 32
The listener receives Earth's message
The listener at Post 1379 detects and decodes Earth's transmission, learning of Earth, then dreams of it burning.
- Ch 32 · 32
The listener sends the warning
To save Earth and his own life's meaning, the listener transmits 'Do not answer!' toward the source, hoping to keep Earth silent.
- Ch 32 · 32
The princeps judges the listener
The princeps spares the listener to let him witness Earth's fall, orders six thousand monitoring officials burned, and commits to launching the fleet.
- Ch 33 · 33
Emergency meeting at the Pendulum Monument
The princeps stops the pendulum, announces Earth's response, and explains the fleet faces death against accelerating human technology. He unveils plans to stifle Earth's science, including Project Sophon.
- Ch 33 · 33
First unfolding fails
The first attempt to unfold a proton yields a harmless one-dimensional string whose threads drift through Trisolaris's atmosphere.
- Ch 33 · 33
Second unfolding and the mirror attack
The second attempt produces a three-dimensional proton containing intelligence. It forms a giant parabolic mirror that burns the capital until the space defense corps destroys it.
- Ch 33 · 33
Third proton unfolding succeeds
The proton is unfolded into a mirror plane in the sky, then wrapped around Trisolaris, plunging the planet into darkness and cold while circuits are etched onto it.
- Ch 33 · 33
Sophon One tested
After circuits are etched, Sophon One boots and is shifted through dimensions up to six, demonstrating it can see inside people and enter enclosed spaces.
- Ch 33 · 33
Four sophons completed and briefed
Sophons Two to Four are built and linked. At the Pendulum Monument, the science consul explains Sophon One and Two will go to Earth to sabotage its accelerator physics.
- Ch 33 · 33
Trisolaran explanation of the Miracle Plan
A Trisolaran explains how sophons can display miracles to terrify and mislead human scientists and why two sophons are kept home for real-time monitoring via entanglement.
- Ch 33 · 33
Trisolaris tells humanity "You're bugs!"
At the Battle Command Center, after General Chang warns of sophon surveillance, everyone sees a two-second message in their eyes reading 'You're bugs!' Trisolaris then cuts off the Adventists.
- Ch 34 · 34
Locust field lesson
Da Shi drives them to wheat fields in Hebei covered with locusts and asks if the human-Trisolaran gap exceeds that between humans and locusts. Moved by the bugs' resilience, Wang and Ding pour out wine, thank him and resolve to return to work.
- Ch 35 · 35
Ye 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.
Book 2 The Dark Forest
- Ch 1 · Prologue
Evans's last conversation with Trisolaris
Evans and the Trisolaran discuss why 'think' and 'say' are synonyms for Trisolarans. Evans's wolf story reveals that Trisolarans cannot comprehend deception; the Trisolaran admits fear of humans, and the conversation ends.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai recalled
After Tang's fourth offshore training session, the two commanders are ordered by Fleet Command to report immediately to General Staff, cancelling the fifth exercise.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
NMD false-target intercept
At Fort Greely the NMD launches a nuclear interceptor at discarded ISS film because of a database link failure; officers at NORAD mock it and Fitzroy is annoyed. The media later presents it as a successful sophon-intercept test.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Second Wallbreaker stopped from suicide
As the man prepares to shoot himself in a basement, a sophon text tells him not to, saying he is needed.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Founding of the Chinese Space Force
Chang Weisi tells thirty officers the space force will be navy-based and academy-like, and that its goals span three centuries beyond their lifetimes.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Three old men discuss bank panic and Escapism
Miao, Zhang and Yang discuss frozen accounts and a news report on Escapism and the failed socialized technology movement; Miao reveals the escape fund and says he will pay for his descendants.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Dinner quarrel over buying escape
Yang Jinwen, Miao Fuquan and Zhang Yuanchao argue about whether escape berths can be bought; Zhang slams the table and storms out, followed by Yang.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Wallbreaker and the sophon
The sophon tells the Wallbreaker the Trisolarans will stop humanity's flight and asks for ETO help; he insists human disputes over who goes will prevent escape.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Shi Xiaoming sells escape fund
Shi persuades Zhang Yuanchao that escape ships will launch in about 120 years and the fund is a good investment.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Escapism outlawed
The UN passes Resolution 117 making Escapism illegal. Zhang Yuanchao learns that his 400,000 yuan escape fund purchase was a scam.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai consults his father
Zhang Beihai, newly in the space force, visits his dying father and asks what to do. He receives only the cryptic answer to think long and hard.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai discuss the war
Overlooking the unfinished Tang, Zhang Beihai tells Wu Yue the war is not hopeless, using the wooden boat and diver bomb analogy.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Space force meeting on defeatism
Zhang Beihai tells Chang Weisi that defeatism is the space force's greatest danger and reports survey results on troops' ideology.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai denounces Wu Yue
At a meeting Zhang Beihai names Wu Yue as a typical defeatist and recommends removing him from the space force. Wu Yue accepts it; Chang Weisi defuses the situation by urging proper channels.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Taihang trip and breakup call
Luo Ji drives into the Taihang Mountains with his imagined love; their car breaks down, and by their fire Bai Rong calls and they end their relationship.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Consultation with the psychologist
Luo Ji tells the doctor about loving a fictional woman; the doctor says it is not serious and advises him not to try to forget her.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Arrival at the United Nations
After a tense flight with an escort mishap, Luo Ji lands, is met by Kent, driven in a convoy to the UN building and taken to the Meditation Room before an important session.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Say announces the Wallfacer Project
At the UN, Secretary General Say explains the Wallfacer Project and names Tyler, Rey Diaz and Hines as Wallfacers, then reveals Luo Ji as the Fourth Wallfacer.
- Ch 2 · Year 3, Crisis Era
Luo Ji meets the assailant and questions his protection
Luo Ji confronts the captured assassin, who mocks his misunderstanding. Luo Ji then notes heavy military security and Kent's role as liaison, despite his refusal.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Luo Ji understands his Wallfacer status
Meeting Say, Luo Ji grasps that Wallfacer status is inescapable and every action will be scrutinized. He learns he is a huge gamble with the fewest resources, then leaves despairing.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Luo Ji requests his dream home
After calming himself in the Meditation Room, Luo Ji tells Garanin to build a secluded luxurious house by a lake and mountains, with a fireplace, and never reveal its location.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Wallbreaker Project launched
In the Three Body game, Qin Shi Huang appoints Von Neumann, Mozi and Aristotle as Wallbreakers for Tyler, Rey Diaz and Hines. Luo Ji is declared his own Wallbreaker.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Tang removed from dry dock
Zhang Beihai and Wu Yue watch the suspended carrier Tang launched early to be towed away for demolition.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Chang Weisi's political officers meeting
Chang Weisi candidly polls political officers on faith in victory; only Zhang Beihai says yes. He outlines three-tier space warfare research institutes, and officers mostly choose low-tech while Zhang picks high-tech.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Luo Ji arrives at the lakeside estate
Luo Ji is taken to a dream-like estate matching his sketch, toured by Kent, and requests Chinese guards, deciding to ignore the Wallfacer Project for now.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Hines resolves on intelligence enhancement
Hines and Keiko agree he will pursue a century-scale project to enhance human intelligence via brain research as his Wallfacer plan.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Tyler presents mosquito swarm plan
At the PDC hearing, Tyler discloses his plan of a thousand hydrogen-bomb fighters with hibernating pilots; Wallfacers bicker and Luo Ji is absent.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Tyler seeks kamikaze force in Japan
Tyler asks Koichi Inoue to revive kamikaze-style units for his fleet; Inoue resists and questions the need for human pilots.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Tyler and Inoue argue over kamikaze squads
At a memorial in the rain, Tyler argues for reviving kamikaze spirit; Koichi Inoue refuses on moral grounds, and Tyler angrily leaves.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Shi Qiang draws Luo Ji's dream woman
Luo Ji asks Shi Qiang to find the woman of his dreams; Shi Qiang deduces her traits and makes a portrait Luo Ji accepts. Kent reluctantly agrees to report the request.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Tyler meets Zhang Beihai
Tyler begins inspecting the space force's ideological work and asks Zhang Beihai whether past armies' spirit can be restored.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Zhuang Yan arrives at the estate
On a rainy evening Zhuang Yan arrives at Luo Ji's estate; he recognizes her as the woman from his dreams and they share fire and wine.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Trip to the snow mountain
Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan sail and drive to a snow mountain. He admits he doesn't know why he was chosen; Shi Qiang calls to reveal his illness and hibernation.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Tyler questions Zhang Beihai
Tyler debates with Zhang Beihai whether society can recover a spirit of sacrifice within four hundred years, and learns little more.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Tyler meets the old man in Afghanistan
Tyler visits the dying old man in a cave and offers resources to preserve his organization until the Doomsday Battle. The old man says hatred sustained it and is gone, so it will perish.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Fourth PDC Wallfacer Hearing
Tyler submits revisions to his mosquito swarm plan, including drone control, personal studies of Europa, Ceres and comets, and easing attacks on the ETO. Diaz objects, and a vote is deferred.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Luo Ji takes Zhuang Yan to the Louvre
At night they tour the Louvre; Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan discuss art and doomsday, and at the Mona Lisa Zhuang Yan suggests humans might develop sophon-proof communication.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan lock eyes at the Louvre
After a failed experiment in expression-based messaging, Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan stare into each other's eyes before the Mona Lisa, and Luo Ji is overwhelmed by a vision of love.
- Ch 3 · Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general. I ought to have that power.”
Hubble II discovers the Trisolaran Fleet
Pushed by Fitzroy, Ringier's team turns Hubble II toward Trisolaris and finds the dust wake of about a thousand ships, confirming the invasion fleet is real.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
Tyler's Wallbreaker appears
A humble man announces he is Tyler's Wallbreaker and lays out Tyler's hidden plan involving water, the ETO and betrayal of Earth's fleet; Tyler collapses in defeat.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai proposes reinforcements
Zhang Beihai urges Chang Weisi to send political officers to the future to fight defeatism; Chang tasks him with researching and drafting a report.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
Tyler visits Luo Ji
Tyler visits Luo Ji's lakeside home, meets his family, and tells him his Wallbreaker appeared four days ago.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai flies to the ISS
Zhang Beihai boards High Frontier, meets Ding Yi, discusses aerospace politics and the sophon blockade, and reaches orbit, first seeing the starfield.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
Luo Ji's breakthrough on the frozen lake
After a month pondering Ye Wenjie's axioms, Luo Ji walks onto the frozen lake, falls through the ice, glimpses the truth of the universe, and escapes. He declares himself his own Wallbreaker.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
Command to destroy Luo Ji
In a dark gathering of figures from many eras, Qin Shi Huang announces the Lord's command to destroy Wallfacer Luo Ji.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
Secret meeting on assassinating Luo Ji
Qin Shi Huang's organization discusses the Lord's second order to kill Luo Ji, finds a direct attack impossible against the deep bunker, and is told to submit plans.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
Luo Ji struck by genetic virus and hibernated
Luo Ji's bed flu worsens into shock, experts identify a genetic guided missile virus, and he is hibernated.
- Ch 4 · Year 8, Crisis Era
The spell is sent
Two days after Luo Ji's hibernation, radio waves are sent to the sun and amplified, carrying his spell into the cosmos.
- Ch 5 · Year 12, Crisis Era
Probes discovered in Trisolaran fleet
Hubble II reveals ten fast probes launched by the Trisolaran Fleet, which will arrive decades ahead of it. Fitzroy links the launch date to Luo Ji's hearing and concludes Luo Ji is vital.
- Ch 5 · Year 12, Crisis Era
Fusion breakthrough and strategy debate
Zhang Beihai visits Ding Yi after the fusion breakthrough and discusses the media-propelled versus radiation-drive spacecraft split, fearing a wrong foundation for the space fleet.
- Ch 5 · Year 12, Crisis Era
Rationing and cosmic burial talk
Rationing returns, and three old men watch the Tianti III test while discussing burial plans to avoid an alien-occupied Earth.
- Ch 5 · Year 12, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai prepares meteorite bullets
He buys three iron meteorites from a collector, mills them into thirty-six rods, glues them to caseless cartridges in a secret basement, and tests them on a simulated target.
- Ch 5 · Year 12, Crisis Era
Assassination at Yellow River Station
During an aerospace group photo in space at sunset, Zhang Beihai fires thirty meteorite bullets from five kilometers, killing three targeted aerospace leaders and hitting two others. Everyone cries meteor shower.
- Ch 5 · Year 12, Crisis Era
Three Body figures debate response
Virtual Three Body figures discuss Zhang Beihai's act, agree not to intervene, judge him dangerous but unprovable, and are relieved he will go to the future.
- Ch 5 · Year 12, Crisis Era
Farewell to the Contingent
Chang Weisi sees off the Special Contingent at the airport and hands Zhang Beihai a letter for his future successor.
- Ch 5 · Year 12, Crisis Era
Farewell at the airport
Zhang Beihai and Chang Weisi exchange a solemn goodbye. The special contingent salutes and boards a plane, which takes off into the bleak winter sky as Chang Weisi watches, pessimistic about humanity's future.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
Awakening and the virtual brain
Hines awakens and meets Yamasuki, who shows him the supercomputer's holographic display of her own brain scanned by the Resolving Imager.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
The water-is-toxic experiment
After Subject 104 develops a belief that water is toxic following an enhanced scan, Hines repeats the experiment on himself and acquires the same delusion.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
Hines tells Chang Weisi of the mental seal
On Space Command's balcony, Hines offers help against defeatism and reveals the mental seal, which can implant belief directly.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
PDC hearing approves a restricted mental seal
After outrage from the delegates, Hines proposes a voluntary, supervised facility with one victory proposition, limited to space forces. The assembly drafts a motion and the facility is named the Faith Center.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
First space force volunteers receive faith
Four officers undergo the mental seal and leave serene; within a week over a hundred space force members follow. Hines and Yamasuki then decide to hibernate until the Trisolaran probes arrive.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
Yamasuki's hibernation horror
Six months later, as Keiko Yamasuki enters hibernation, a sudden clarity strikes her, causing horror and despair she cannot voice; the operators dismiss it as normal reflex.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
Mercury underground test
The stellar hydrogen bomb is detonated in a shaft on Mercury at one-third the planned depth, throwing up a mountain of rock, a five-minute fireball, and a ring around the planet.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
Wallbreaker reveals himself
The Wallbreaker visits Rey Diaz, claiming to be a psychiatrist, identifies himself, and explains Rey Diaz's alleged plan to drop Mercury into the sun based on Cosmo's 275E1 research.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
Wallbreaker confronts Rey Diaz
The Wallbreaker reveals Rey Diaz's mutual-destruction plan; Rey Diaz laughs, then strangles and beats him before guards separate them.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
PDC Wallfacer hearing
Major powers seek to suspend and prosecute Rey Diaz. He reveals his cradle dead-man's switch linked to something in New York City, forcing them to let him leave.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
Death of Rey Diaz
Rey Diaz returns to Caracas and addresses the crowd at Plaza Bolívar; the people stone him to death, an old woman delivering the last stone.
- Ch 6 · Year 20, Crisis Era
Passing of the Golden Age generation
Over the following decades, key figures retire, die or enter hibernation, and the Golden Age generation vanishes from living memory.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Luo Ji reawakens in year 205
Luo Ji wakes from hibernation after 185 years, meets the doctor, nurse and fellow hibernator Xiong Wen, and learns about the era's technology, the Trisolaran fleet and the dismissal of the Wallfacer Project.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Wallfacer Project terminated
The SFJC votes unanimously for Proposition 649, ending the Wallfacer Project and Act and revoking Luo Ji's and Hines's status. Jonathan then briefs Luo Ji.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Yamasuki reveals herself as Hines's Wallbreaker
Before the Joint Conference, Yamasuki exposes that Hines's real plan was Escapism via the mental seal, with a hidden negative sign in all five devices, and that the Imprinted may still exist.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Hines confesses self-imprinting
Hines admits he used the mental seal on himself so he can never repent his plan, while believing humanity will win. The delegates debate that the lack of signs of the Imprinted may be the most frightening part.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Sewer cover opens
Near Shi Qiang's tree a sewer cover slides open under Luo Ji, and Shi Qiang catches him. The worker blames a software failure.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Sofa attack and Killer 5.2 revealed
The wrong sleeping pills turn out to be suicide hibernation medicine, then a sofa tries to strangle Luo Ji. Officer Guo arrives, firewalls the home, explains Killer 5.2 and advises living on the surface.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai assigned as acting captain
At Jupiter Fleet Command, the Asian Fleet commander explains the mental seal threat and orders the reawakened contingent to act as acting captains of centrally commanded warships. Zhang Beihai doubts this but is told refusal is not tradition.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai arrives on Natural Selection
Learning of fleet rivalry over the probe interception, Zhang Beihai boards Natural Selection and is met by captain Dongfang Yanxu, who offers him a pistol as a challenge.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Luo Ji and Shi Qiang reach the surface
Shi Qiang reunites with his son Shi Xiaoming on the sandy surface, and they visit a hibernator village where neighbors recount the Great Ravine and its aftermath.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai's first onboard lesson
Dongfang Yanxu shows Zhang Beihai in simulation how to put Natural Selection into navigation mode and how an Imprinted hijacker might flee, then they talk of family and he warns he may have to kill her.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
The probe goes dark
The Trisolaran probe's engines go out, making it untraceable; Kuhn and Robinson, hampered by fleet disputes, decide to try a stellar bomb near Neptune to create a dust cloud to detect it.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Blue Shadow at the dust cloud
Blue Shadow's two-man crew reaches the edge of the huge dust cloud beyond Neptune's orbit, which is too faint to see.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Blue Shadow finds the Trisolaran probe
The dust-cloud wake lets Ringier-Fitzroy Station compute the probe's trajectory; Blue Shadow rendezvous and sights it, realizing it is decelerating to stay in the Solar System.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai hijacks Natural Selection
After the permissions handover, Zhang Beihai locks out the captain, cuts communications and orders deep-sea state. Dongfang Yanxu complies, and he launches the ship at Ahead Four from Jupiter.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Zhang Beihai explains his defection
After reaching 1% light speed, Zhang tells the Asian Fleet commander he is saving a seed of humanity, citing Future History. The fleet holds back pursuit to avoid pushing him into wasting fuel.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Trisolaran advance ship revealed
The telescope sees a Trisolaran ship still accelerating ahead of the fleet; humanity concludes it is coming to negotiate, sparking worldwide celebration.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Combined fleet launches from Jupiter
The 2,015-ship combined fleet departs Jupiter base to intercept the Trisolaran probe, a spectacle watched with awe and pride worldwide.
- Ch 7 · Year 205, Crisis Era
Standoff aboard Natural Selection
Dongfang Yanxu urges Zhang Beihai to surrender, but he keeps writing his account while pursuers close in.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Ding Yi requests a deep-sea state
Ding Yi, uneasy, asks that Quantum enter a deep-sea state during his visit. The fleet approves, and Quantum and Bronze Age will do so once the examination team departs.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Mantis captures the droplet
Mantis approaches and grasps the droplet, retracts it into its cabin, and two hours pass without self-destruction. Earth celebrates and opinion toward Trisolaris softens.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Zhang Beihai hands over Natural Selection
Zhang Beihai transfers captain's privileges to Dongfang Yanxu on condition that the ship not decelerate; she agrees and asks him to stay in his cabin.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Expedition shuttle departs
Ding Yi, Xizi and two officers from the European and North American Fleets leave Quantum by shuttle toward the droplet.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Expedition examines the droplet aboard Mantis
The team boards Mantis and tests the droplet, finding its surface perfectly smooth at ten million times magnification and unmarked by a claw or pick. Ding Yi concludes it is held by strong interaction and is a threat.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Droplet destroys Mantis and the first row of the fleet
Communications are jammed, the droplet ignites its tail halo, vaporizes the team and Mantis, then speeds through the fleet's first row of a hundred warships, detonating them in fusion explosions in 78 seconds.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Fleet fails to grasp the attack
As the droplet turns toward Ganges and the second row, Fleet Command is in shock and relies on a computer that blames an unseen enemy force.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Droplet destroys the second and third rows
The droplet annihilates the second row of 100 ships in under a minute and a half, then weaves through the third row in 2 minutes 35 seconds while debris adds to the confusion.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Zhao Xin and Li Wei deduce the truth
Two hibernator officers realize a single tiny projectile is passing through ships one after another; their analysis is not passed up, but the command system later reaches the same conclusion after thirteen minutes.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Annihilation of humanity's fleet
The droplet destroys the fleet in the debris cloud and its fleeing remnants. Only Quantum and Bronze Age escape; the droplet then heads toward the sun.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Zhang Beihai takes command
Zhang Beihai wakes and finds Natural Selection's crew and the four pursuing ships' officers assembled. They present him with command of the five remaining stellar-class warships rather than treating him as a defector.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Founding of Starship Earth
Zhang Beihai tells the crews they cannot return to Earth. They name themselves Starship Earth, and the Citizens' Assembly sets course for NH558J2 and declares independence. The UN and SFJC give tacit blessing.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Earth reels from the fleet's destruction
Mass mental breakdown sweeps Earth after the fleet's destruction is seen. Shi Qiang, in charge of a hibernator neighborhood, urges migration to the northwest and agricultural preparation.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Zhang Beihai declines supreme command
Elected chair of the Authority Committee unanimously, Zhang Beihai refuses and instead asks Dongfang Yanxu to restore his acting-captain permissions on Natural Selection.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Psychological crisis spreads
Senior officers become withdrawn and gloomy, violence erupts on Natural Selection, Scott hints at the 'fruit of knowledge', Lan Xi succumbs, and the captain of Ultimate Law kills himself.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Silent meeting of the captain and vice-captains
In the fighter hangar, Dongfang Yanxu, Levine and Akira Inoue communicate through their eyes, concluding fuel and parts are insufficient, some must die, and considering infrasonic H-bombs.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Zhang Beihai's attack on the four ships
Zhang Beihai locks targets and arms infrasonic H-bombs against four pursuing ships, but hesitates; Ultimate Law strikes first and wipes out all aboard Natural Selection, including Zhang Beihai.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Blue Space destroys Ultimate Law and holds funeral
Blue Space, protected by vacuum, destroys Ultimate Law, salvages the dead ships, builds a space tomb for the victims, and departs into darkness. Bronze Age similarly destroys Quantum's crew far across the Solar System.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Luo Ji seeks the mayor
Hearing of the Battle of Darkness, Luo Ji declares himself vindicated and goes with Shi Qiang through the chaotic underground city to City Hall to meet the new mayor.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Meeting the mayor
Luo Ji and Shi Qiang meet the mayor, who refuses help, describes social collapse and Escapism riots, and offers Shi Qiang a job.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Luo Ji awaits the droplet
Luo Ji parts from Shi Qiang and waits in the desert, reviewing his life, believing the droplet will strike him.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
The droplet seals off the sun
The droplet stops at a Lagrange point and broadcasts radio at the sun, blocking its use as a message amplifier. Luo Ji survives and reunites with Shi Qiang.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
The crowd kneels to Luo Ji
A glowing crowd near New Life Village waits for Luo Ji, kneels to him as an angel or spokesman, and Hines and Jonathan announce the Wallfacer Project's revival and 187J3X1's destruction. Luo Ji asks for order to be restored and everyone to go home.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Luo Ji explains cosmic sociology
In the dark desert, using two cigarettes as two planets, Luo Ji leads Shi Qiang through the axioms, chain of suspicion and technological explosion, concluding that once a civilization learns of another, only eradication remains.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Luo Ji explains the dark forest
Luo Ji tells Shi Qiang how the dark forest theory underlies his spell, why it cannot be sent now, and why humanity could never have used it against Trisolaris.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Wallfacer Project hearings
The revived commission demands Luo Ji do something, offering his family's reawakening in exchange. It assigns him the Snow Project to track the nine droplets.
- Ch 8 · “Yet its engine lights up. We’ve observed that. When it went out for a second time, Blue Shadow wasn’t close enough to capture an image in time, so we don’t know where the light came from.”
Snow Project fails and Luo Ji loses prestige
The project stalls after a year and a half, and the public loses faith in Luo Ji as a savior.
- Ch 9 · Year 208, Crisis Era
Luo Ji expelled and driven out
The residents' council expels Luo Ji; he leaves that night with a shovel, is thrown off a car and a bus by hibernators who recognise him, and walks to the cemetery.
- Ch 9 · Year 208, Crisis Era
Luo Ji digs his grave
At the cemetery beside the graves of Yang Dong and Ye Wenjie, Luo Ji digs a shallow grave, sleeps, dreams of Zhuang Yan, and wakes feverish at dawn.
- Ch 9 · Year 208, Crisis Era
Final showdown with Trisolaris
Luo Ji, pistol to his heart, announces the bomb broadcast deterrent. Sophons appear, and Trisolaris agrees to halt the probe transmissions and redirect the nine droplets, but not turn the fleet.
- Ch 9 · Year 208, Crisis Era
Trisolaris yields to Luo Ji's deterrence
Facing the dark forest deterrence, Trisolaris agrees to turn its fleet around. Luo Ji explains how he deceived them, then lays out likely negotiation topics before the sophon leaves.
- Ch 10 · Five Years Later
Family visits the antenna
Luo Ji, Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia visit the giant gravitational-wave antenna at sunset in northern China.
- Ch 10 · Five Years Later
Trisolaran operator speaks with Luo Ji
Through a sophon, the elderly Trisolaran who sent the original warning protests that humanity is not the only species with love, and proposes encouraging love elsewhere in the universe; Luo Ji agrees.
Book 3 Death's End
- Ch 1 · Excerpt from the Preface to A Past Outside of Time
The narrator prepares to remember
In a preface, the narrator explains that the account is only a frame based on memory, adjusts the sun to bring an early dusk, waves at their own silhouette and decides it is a good time for remembering.
- Ch 2 · May 1453, C.E. The Death of the Magician
Helena sent to kill Mehmed II
The emperor blesses Helena, and Phrantzes gives her portraits and a knife. She heads for the Blachernae quarter and does not return; the minaret is later found whole.
- Ch 2 · May 1453, C.E. The Death of the Magician
Hagia Sophia chamber opened
Laborers breach the secret chamber under Hagia Sophia, finding the sealed sarcophagus intact with fresh grapes, half eaten as Helena claimed, and everything present except the chalice.
- Ch 2 · May 1453, C.E. The Death of the Magician
End of the age of magic
The high-dimensional fragment left Earth at 9 p.m. on May 28, ending the twenty-five-day age of magic.
- Ch 2 · May 1453, C.E. The Death of the Magician
Fall of Constantinople
On May 29, 1453, the Ottomans stormed Constantinople; Constantine died fighting, ending the Byzantine Empire.
- Ch 3 · Crisis Era, Year 1 The Option for Life
Yang Dong learns her mother's secret
Yang Dong secretly recovers Ye Wenjie's deleted encrypted messages and learns about Trisolaris and her mother's hidden role, but keeps silent.
- Ch 3 · Crisis Era, Year 1 The Option for Life
The life-unchecked simulation
Green Glasses runs a coarse Earth simulation with life disabled, producing a dry planet. Yang Dong asks whether the same would hold for the universe, and realizes the implications given the Trisolaran secret.
- Ch 4 · Crisis Era, Year 4 Yun Tianming
Tianming realizes his sister's motive
Tianming recognizes Dr. Zhang as his sister's classmate and concludes she wants him to choose euthanasia to protect her inheritance. He resigns himself and applies for euthanasia.
- Ch 4 · Crisis Era, Year 4 Yun Tianming
Hu Wen gives Tianming money
Wen visits with Green Tempest and gives Tianming three million yuan for the idea behind it. After the Stars Our Destination Project is announced, Tianming resolves to buy Cheng Xin a star.
- Ch 5 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Infantilism at the Start of the Crisis
Stars Our Destination Project launched and fails
Say proposed auctioning rights to distant stars to fund UN defense research. The PDC passed a limited version, but only seventeen stars sold at minimum price, raising about forty million dollars, and the project was forgotten.
- Ch 5 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Infantilism at the Start of the Crisis
Crisis Amendment adopted
The great powers amended the Space Convention so that resources beyond the Kuiper Belt fall under UN auspices, as political theater.
- Ch 6 · Crisis Era, Year 4 Yun Tianming
Tianming buys DX3906 for Cheng Xin
At UNESCO's Beijing office, Tianming purchases the star DX3906 in Cheng Xin's name anonymously. Dr. He then drives him out of the city to see it.
- Ch 6 · Crisis Era, Year 4 Yun Tianming
Futile search at the academy
Tianming flies to Shanghai and waits outside the Academy of Spaceflight Technology hoping to see Cheng Xin, but she never appears and he returns home in despair.
- Ch 7 · Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin
Wade proposes a spy probe
At the first all-hands meeting, Wade announces the PIA must launch a probe at the Trisolaran Fleet reaching one percent of lightspeed, and experts doubt it is possible.
- Ch 7 · Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin
Cheng Xin presents en-route propulsion
Mocked at first, Cheng Xin explains distributing nuclear bombs along the route to push a light sail probe; the experts take it seriously and Vadimov names it the Staircase Program.
- Ch 7 · Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin
Wade proposes sending a person
Wade explodes that they will not stop and proposes sending a live hibernating human into the Trisolaran Fleet. The group sees that sophon transparency could work in the plan's favor.
- Ch 8 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Hibernation: Man Walks for the First Time Through Time
Hibernation freed from restraint
The Trisolar Crisis made the future seem dangerous, so governments stopped suppressing hibernation. It developed freely and became commercially viable, letting humans travel through time.
- Ch 9 · Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin
Assassination attempt on Luo Ji
After the Wallfacer Project announcement, a Wallfacer is shot outside the General Assembly; PIA staff only see the commotion.
- Ch 9 · Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin
Wade proposes sending only a brain
Facing the half-kilogram payload limit, Wade rallies his despairing team and announces a new plan: send only a brain to the Trisolarans.
- Ch 10 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Staircase Program
Staircase Program described
A retrospective account explains how the Staircase Program accelerated a probe to 1 percent of lightspeed using timed nuclear explosions behind a radiation sail, with a payload on very long Flying Blade cables.
- Ch 11 · Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin
Mass missile launch
Peacekeeper, Topol and Dongfeng missiles are launched into orbit from Cape Canaveral and elsewhere to supply power for accelerating the Staircase probe; Cheng Xin watches in tears.
- Ch 11 · Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin
Cheng Xin sees her star
After cloudy days, Cheng Xin and Vadimov find the faint red DX3906 with binoculars. Vadimov confides that he is the best candidate for the Staircase Program but is avoiding it.
- Ch 11 · Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin
Tianming accepts the mission
Cheng Xin asks the terminally ill Tianming to volunteer as the Staircase subject. Realizing she wants him to die, and fearing Trisolaran torture, he laughs hysterically, then accepts.
- Ch 12 · Crisis Era, Years 5–7 The Staircase Program
Staircase craft launched and lost
The craft accelerates with nuclear bombs to 1% lightspeed but is lost near Jupiter's orbit when its sail curls; the program is deemed a half success.
- Ch 13 · Deterrence Era, Year 12 Bronze Age
Bronze Age nears Earth
During final deceleration, the crew gather at the portholes, see Earth with the naked eye, and celebrate going home and the lifting of the childbirth restriction.
- Ch 13 · Deterrence Era, Year 12 Bronze Age
Earth falls silent
Fourteen years after the fleet's destruction, and after a year and a half of continued transmissions, all radio transmissions from Earth ceased in November, Crisis Era Year 208.
- Ch 14 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Nyctohylophobia
Humanity's panicked radio shutdown
After learning of the dark forest, humanity forcibly shut down antennas and mobile phones, then restored networks under severe electromagnetic restrictions, though these measures were largely meaningless.
- Ch 15 · Deterrence Era, Year 12 Bronze Age
Recall message and confirmation
Ten days after Earth's signals stopped, Fleet Command's message ordered Bronze Age and Blue Space home. A sophon channel then confirmed it, and Bronze Age turned back.
- Ch 15 · Deterrence Era, Year 12 Bronze Age
Bronze Age returns to Earth
After eleven years, Bronze Age is escorted by Gravity into the orbital spaceport, where a crowd welcomes the crew with flowers.
- Ch 15 · Deterrence Era, Year 12 Bronze Age
Crew arrested
After roll call, the welcome turns out to be a deception. The fleet captain dishonorably discharges the crew, and military police arrest them for murder and crimes against humanity.
- Ch 16 · Deterrence Era, Year 13 Trial
Court-martial of Bronze Age crew
At the fleet base in geosynchronous orbit, Scott, Schneider and Rovinski are questioned. Scott admits 94% of the crew voted to attack Quantum, and Rovinski reveals the crew ate Quantum's dead. Scott and six officers get life sentences, and most of the crew get long terms.
- Ch 16 · Deterrence Era, Year 13 Trial
Schneider's warning to Blue Space
During the ship handover, Schneider traps his guards, activates Bronze Age's interstellar antenna, warns Blue Space not to return, and is killed by laser fire.
- Ch 16 · Deterrence Era, Year 13 Trial
Blue Space flees and Gravity pursues
Blue Space begins full acceleration away. Earth and Trisolaris see it as a shared enemy. Earth refuses a droplet strike, and Gravity with two droplet escorts pursues, fifty years from catching it.
- Ch 17 · Deterrence Era, Year 61 The Swordholder
Wade'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.
- Ch 18 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Ghost of the Wallfacers: The Swordholder
Authority handed back to Luo Ji
After Luo Ji transferred deterrence control to the UN and Fleet, humanity quickly realized only he gave credible deterrence and returned it within eighteen hours; Trisolaris failed to strike during that window.
- Ch 18 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Ghost of the Wallfacers: The Swordholder
Debate over replacing the Swordholder
Sixty years into deterrence, society debates the aging Luo Ji's role; AI control is rejected and replacing the Swordholder is proposed as a compromise.
- Ch 19 · Deterrence Era, Year 61 The Swordholder
Trisolaran artists revealed
AA reveals that the artists behind the admired films, paintings and music are all Trisolarans, leaving Cheng Xin stunned.
- Ch 20 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Cultural Reflection
Trisolaris transmits knowledge to Earth
Trisolaris sends complete systems of basic science to Earth, overwhelming scientists. Humans suspect Earth is being used as a knowledge battery, though sophon interference ends and the physics is verified.
- Ch 20 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Cultural Reflection
Wave of cultural reflection
After the tenth year of the Deterrence Era, Trisolaris sends high-quality art imitating human culture, which becomes popular on Earth and displaces native human culture, while Trisolaris itself stays mysterious.
- Ch 21 · Deterrence Era, Year 61 The Swordholder
Six candidates urge Cheng Xin not to run
Six Common Era Swordholder candidates tell Cheng Xin she would likely win but is unsuited and should not compete, leaving her aware of the world's fragility.
- Ch 21 · Deterrence Era, Year 61 The Swordholder
Cheng Xin declares candidacy
After the DX3906 handover at the UN and the PDC chair's request, Cheng Xin, moved by a young mother and her baby, resolves to become a Swordholder candidate.
- Ch 22 · Deterrence Era, Year 62 Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud
Gravity closes in on Blue Space
After fifty years of pursuit across 1.5 light-years, Gravity approaches within three AU of Blue Space, having maintained a higher speed and outplayed it on fuel knowledge.
- Ch 22 · Deterrence Era, Year 62 Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud
Loss of real-time communication with Earth
A year earlier, with the ships thirty AU apart, Gravity and its droplets entered a region where sophons lost their quantum ties to home, forcing slow neutrino and radio communication with Earth.
- Ch 23 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time More Indirect Evidence for the Dark Forest: Sophon-Blind Regions
Sophons lost in blind regions
Six sophons launched by Trisolaris, and later ones, entered blind regions and lost contact permanently. Only two lifeless star systems were explored beforehand.
- Ch 23 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time More Indirect Evidence for the Dark Forest: Sophon-Blind Regions
Blind regions taken as evidence for the dark forest
Earth and Trisolaris interpreted the blind regions as likely artificial and as indirect proof of the dark forest, since the cosmos was being kept hidden.
- Ch 24 · Deterrence Era, Year 62 Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud
Blue Space surrenders
Gravity refuses Blue Space's partial surrender offer; at fifteen AU, Blue Space announces surrender and decelerates, so Gravity's crew wakes and prepares for combat.
- Ch 24 · Deterrence Era, Year 62 Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud
Strange anomalies aboard Gravity
Devon sees Park Ui-gun in a passageway, Ivantsov finds micrometeoroid damage deep in the ship, Ike sees a bubble cutting through his cabin, and Liu sees the ship's tail missing.
- Ch 24 · Deterrence Era, Year 62 Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud
Guan describes the universe as a diseased body
Guan tells West about his dream and argues the universe is paraplegic and a bloating corpse because of light-speed limits and three accessible dimensions; he says he wants to go home.
- Ch 24 · Deterrence Era, Year 62 Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud
Droplet attack on Gravity and Blue Space
Battle alarms sound as two droplets accelerate, one toward each ship. With no time to evade, Guan and West calmly accept imminent death.
- Ch 25 · Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:00 P.M. to 4:17 P.M.: Deterrence Center
Deterrence 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.
- Ch 26 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Choice of the Swordholder: Ten Minutes Between Existence and Annihilation
Sons of the Earth attack Antarctic station
In Year 6 of the Deterrence Era, over three hundred Sons of the Earth attacked a gravitational wave station in Antarctica and nearly seized it before defenders destroyed the antenna.
- Ch 26 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Choice of the Swordholder: Ten Minutes Between Existence and Annihilation
Transmitters reduced to four
After the attack, Trisolaris pressured Earth into strictly controlling gravitational wave technology, cutting the twenty-three stations to four.
- Ch 26 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Choice of the Swordholder: Ten Minutes Between Existence and Annihilation
Droplet deployment agreement
Earth agreed that four droplets stay beyond the Kuiper Belt, each accompanied by a human probe; the other six droplets' whereabouts remain unknown.
- Ch 27 · Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:00 P.M. to 4:17 P.M.: Deterrence Center
Luo Ji arrested
In the lobby, Tribunal prosecutors arrest Luo Ji for suspected mundicide; he ignores them and enters the elevator.
- Ch 28 · The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Deterrence Center
Six 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.
- Ch 28 · The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Deterrence Center
Cheng 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.
- Ch 28 · The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Deterrence Center
Deterrence terminated
The droplets destroy the three gravitational wave transmitters and suppress solar radio amplification, ending dark forest deterrence without attacking the Swordholder.
- Ch 29 · Post-Deterrence Era, First Hour A Lost World
Cheng Xin emerges after deterrence ends
Cheng Xin surfaces to the empty plaza and sees the mushroom cloud where the droplet struck. The guards don't yet know what happened.
- Ch 30 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Reflections on the Failure of Dark Forest Deterrence
Analysis of deterrence failure
The author argues the failure stemmed less from the number of transmitters than from their vulnerable placement. Gravitational wave ships were never built in numbers because of extremist threats, cost, and a deep fear of their power.
- Ch 31 · Post-Deterrence Era, First Hour A Lost World
Antenna destroyed by droplet
A Trisolaran droplet pierced the Gobi crust, destroyed the gravitational wave antenna and caused two eruptions, ending Earth's deterrence.
- Ch 32 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 60 A Lost World
Second Trisolaran Fleet discovered
After deterrence ends, the observation station finds 415 trails showing a second Trisolaran fleet. Further trails reveal it travelled at lightspeed and is now decelerating, arriving in about a year rather than centuries.
- Ch 33 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Technology Explosion on Trisolaris
Trisolaran technology explosion
Trisolaran technology shifted to explosive progress, likely due to human cultural influence via sophons that loosened totalitarianism, and possibly due to knowledge from another civilization found by exploratory sophons.
- Ch 34 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 60 A Lost World
Reservation Proclamation
Sophon announces the Second Trisolaran Fleet arrives in four years and orders humanity to disarm and resettle in Australia within one year.
- Ch 34 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 60 A Lost World
Droplet attack on three cities
Five days after the proclamation, a droplet strikes hanging buildings in cities on three continents, killing over 300,000 and showing human cities are defenseless.
- Ch 35 · Post-Deterrence Era, Year 2 Australia
Sophon enforces order at Carnegie
A food distribution turns into a riot; Sophon kills many refugees with her katana, then orders them to form a line, which they do.
- Ch 35 · Post-Deterrence Era, Year 2 Australia
Australia descends into chaos
Australia's hard-line government restricts migrants; the Sydney Incident and Canberra Massacre follow, and resettled society turns totalitarian and warlike.
- Ch 35 · Post-Deterrence Era, Year 2 Australia
The Great Resettlement completes
With New Zealand as buffer, the last refugees reach Australia three days before the deadline; 4.16 billion are in Australia, and Sophon orders extermination of those outside.
- Ch 36 · The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space
Hunter's self-destruct fails
As the droplet attack alarm sounds then stops with the transmitter intact, Hunter presses his watch button to destroy the controller, but the self-destruct module has been dismantled.
- Ch 36 · The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space
Droplets miss and are found dead
Both droplets narrowly miss Gravity and Blue Space. Replays show them rusted and lifeless, deflected and slowed by a Blue Space shuttle, implying Blue Space knows how to disable droplets.
- Ch 36 · The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space
Blue Space marines capture Gravity
Hunter shoots infiltrator Park Ui-gun at the transmission control room; Blue Space marines then storm in, Hunter's heart is extracted, and Morovich's officers surrender.
- Ch 36 · The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space
Referendum on the universal broadcast
Chu Yan presents the lightspeed Trisolaran fleet and calls a vote of 1,415 people; with 943 ayes, Morovich and others add the deciding vote and the broadcast of Trisolaris's location begins.
- Ch 36 · The Final Ten Minutes of the Deterrence Era, Year 62 November 28, 4:17:34 P.M. to 4:27:58 P.M.: Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space
Gravitational wave broadcast begins
The broadcast plays for twelve seconds, sending the judgment of death for both worlds across the cosmos at lightspeed.
- Ch 37 · Post-Deterrence Era, Year 2 The Morning After the Great Resettlement, Australia
Announcement of the universal broadcast
Sophon announces over the information window that Gravity broadcast Trisolaris' location. The Trisolarans flee, the droplets vanish, and the crowd in Australia erupts in cheers as the refugees prepare to return home.
- Ch 38 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 1–Day 5 Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space Beyond the Oort Cloud
First entry into four-dimensional space
Chu Yan leads Morovich and Guan through a warped point in Blue Space. They experience four-dimensional space, learn about warped points and the fragment, then return.
- Ch 38 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 1–Day 5 Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space Beyond the Oort Cloud
Discovery of the Ring and other objects
Telescopes inserted through warped points reveal a sealed, artificial ring and about a hundred other inactive four-dimensional objects. This is the first observation of another civilization besides Earth and Trisolaris.
- Ch 38 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 1–Day 5 Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space Beyond the Oort Cloud
Retreat from the fragment
After repeated micrometeoroid strikes, including one that nearly destroys Blue Space's reactor, Chu Yan orders both ships to decelerate and leave the fragment.
- Ch 38 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 1–Day 5 Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space Beyond the Oort Cloud
Exploring the Ring
Guan, Zhuo and West fly a pinnace through four-dimensional space to the Ring, exchange prime-number bitmaps, and send the Rosetta System. The Ring declares itself a tomb and converses with them.
- Ch 38 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 1–Day 5 Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space Beyond the Oort Cloud
The Ring's warning and the gift
The Ring says the dark forest exists between civilizations in the same dimension, urges humans to leave the puddle, and receives Guan's ecological sphere before falling silent.
- Ch 38 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 1–Day 5 Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space Beyond the Oort Cloud
The Ring decays into three-dimensional space
The fragment shrinks and the ships exit. After twenty-two days the Ring enters three-dimensional space and decays into a one-AU line of light that becomes a dust belt. The ships collect some resources, and a council offers crews a choice to continue or return.
- Ch 38 · Post-Deterrence Era, Day 1–Day 5 Gravity and Blue Space, Deep Space Beyond the Oort Cloud
Hibernation ark and the two ships part ways
Only about two hundred people chose to return to the Solar System. A month later the hibernation ark set off for home while Blue Space and Gravity continued into deep space, and the fusion glow lit the dust belt as they departed.
- Ch 39 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Cheng Xin
Retaliation against the ESF
After the broadcast news, tribunals tried all ESF members, convicting half of crimes against humanity; many were executed despite their contributions to order and recovery.
- Ch 39 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Cheng Xin
Humanity doubts dark forest theory
Believing they could live out their lives in peace, people comfort themselves by questioning the validity of dark forest theory.
- Ch 40 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Delusions of Cosmic Persecution: The Last Attempt to Invalidate Dark Forest Theory
Review of the evidence for dark forest theory
The excerpt examines three pieces of evidence: the destruction of 187J3X1, Trisolaris's fear of deterrence, and the Ring's confirmation. It finds each scientifically inconclusive, and public opinion in the Broadcast Era shifts toward calling the theory a delusion of cosmic persecution.
- Ch 41 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Cheng Xin
Public blame after the Deterrence Era
After the universal broadcast, humanity denounces the Swordholder and the selection process, though Cheng Xin is treated relatively sympathetically and fades from public attention.
- Ch 42 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time A New Model for the Dark Forest
Destruction of Trisolaris
A photoid launched from a nearby spacecraft almost instantly after the broadcast struck one of Trisolaris's three stars, and the explosion annihilated the planet.
- Ch 42 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time A New Model for the Dark Forest
Revision of the dark forest model
Since the attack came from a spacecraft, the dark forest model had to be revised to include unseen spaceships, making attack sources unpredictable and the threat to humanity more immediate.
- Ch 43 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Sophon
Destruction of Trisolaris
A photoid struck a Trisolaran sun, a fire plume scoured the planet, and the star collapsed and exploded; humanity saw the light three days before.
- Ch 44 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Cosmic Safety Notice: A Lonely Performance Art
Humanity debates safety notice proposals
After the Sophon–Cheng Xin–Luo Ji conversation is publicized, humanity floods in proposals for a safety notice, which divide into declaratory and self-mutilation camps, but none solve the problem of convincing a distant universe.
- Ch 45 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Sophon
Sophon's farewell tea
Before a vast silent crowd, Sophon holds a final tea with Cheng Xin and Luo Ji, then says her last mission is a message: Yun Tianming wants to see Cheng Xin.
- Ch 46 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Long Staircase
Trisolarans capture Yun Tianming's probe
A ship of the First Trisolaran Fleet, probably the one that never decelerated, intercepted the Staircase probe carrying Yun Tianming's brain, likely 30 to 50 years earlier, aided by sophon-gathered flight parameters and luck.
- Ch 46 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Long Staircase
Humanity learns of Yun Tianming
News of Yun Tianming's presence and his request to see Cheng Xin became public; people saw him as an angel of salvation, though doubts remained about his loyalties.
- Ch 47 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming
Ascent to the terminal station
Cheng Xin rides the space elevator to geosynchronous orbit, experiences weightlessness for the first time, and passes through the station's rings to Port A225.
- Ch 47 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming
Briefing on the Sophon-controlled dinghy
The fleet chief explains the traffic-light warning system and bomb in the dinghy; Cheng Xin accepts the risk and the dinghy departs five hours later for the Lagrangian point.
- Ch 47 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming
Return to Earth
The Trisolarans do not kill Cheng Xin. She returns to the terminal station, repeating Tianming's words, and a PDC official tells her they held little hope she would learn anything.
- Ch 47 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming
Cheng Xin's debriefing
In a sophon-free room Cheng Xin recorded her conversation five times over more than six hours, including under psychologists' guidance, then was congratulated by the special team.
- Ch 47 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming
Sophon's withdrawal
Sophon's house and robot avatar burned as she announced all sophons would be withdrawn from the Solar System, though people doubted it.
- Ch 48 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales
Cheng Xin proposes thanking Wade
Cheng Xin credits Wade for the Staircase Project, but the room falls silent and no one supports her.
- Ch 49 · The First Tale of Yun Tianming “The New Royal Painter”
Ice Sand's feigned loyalty
At the king's sixtieth birthday, where Dewdrop is named heir, Ice Sand humbly supports her and presents Needle-Eye as the new royal painter.
- Ch 49 · The First Tale of Yun Tianming “The New Royal Painter”
The night of the portraits
In a bunker, Needle-Eye paints the king, queen and loyal ministers; each disappears from their bed. Ice Sand plans to keep the portraits.
- Ch 49 · The First Tale of Yun Tianming “The New Royal Painter”
Ethereal warns the princess
Ethereal arrives with a spinning umbrella, explains Needle-Eye's magic, and with Auntie Wide's obsidian iron begins flattening snow-wave paper to paint Needle-Eye.
- Ch 49 · The First Tale of Yun Tianming “The New Royal Painter”
Ethereal sacrifices himself
Ethereal gives instructions for the umbrella and tells the princess to bring Deep Water to kill Needle-Eye. He urges her to leave, then is painted into a picture and vanishes.
- Ch 49 · The First Tale of Yun Tianming “The New Royal Painter”
Flight from the palace
At dawn the princess, Auntie Wide and the captain leave in a carriage in disguise, while Needle-Eye finishes the princess's portrait.
- Ch 50 · The Second Tale of Yun Tianming “The Glutton’s Sea”
Flight to the sea
Having escaped the palace unpursued, the princess, Auntie Wide and Long-Sail travel a day by back routes, keeping the umbrella spinning, and reach the shore at midnight, where a plank is devoured by glutton fish.
- Ch 50 · The Second Tale of Yun Tianming “The Glutton’s Sea”
Long-Sail tells the story of the glutton fish
At night on the beach, Long-Sail recounts how glutton fish escaped into the sea, sealed off the kingdom, and turned the Storyful Kingdom into the Storyless Kingdom. The princess confesses her yearning to sail away.
- Ch 51 · The Third Tale of Yun Tianming “Prince Deep Water”
Crossing to Tomb Island
Long-Sail, Dewdrop and Auntie Wide row a small boat to Tomb Island, dragging soap foam that pacifies the glutton fish, and reach Prince Deep Water.
- Ch 51 · The Third Tale of Yun Tianming “Prince Deep Water”
Identity proven and return
A blood test confirms Dewdrop's identity; Deep Water, his followers and the party return along the foam wake. Cavalry sent to kill the princess do not attack and escort them toward the palace.
- Ch 51 · The Third Tale of Yun Tianming “Prince Deep Water”
Needle-Eye fails to paint Deep Water
Ice Sand sends Needle-Eye to paint Deep Water, but the painter returns shaken, saying the prince defies perspective and cannot be painted.
- Ch 51 · The Third Tale of Yun Tianming “Prince Deep Water”
Deep Water kills Ice Sand
Deep Water arrives at the palace with the army watching; in a duel Ice Sand misjudges distance because of Deep Water's lack of perspective and is stabbed through the chest.
- Ch 51 · The Third Tale of Yun Tianming “Prince Deep Water”
Long-Sail burns the portrait
Long-Sail finds Needle-Eye's studio empty with his self-portrait and portraits of Dewdrop and others, and burns Dewdrop's portrait. Dewdrop then closes her umbrella unharmed.
- Ch 52 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales
IDC fails to decipher Tianming's stories
The IDC's groups produced many conflicting interpretations of the three tales, including digitization, four-dimensional refuge and the Shoaling Interpretation, but none could be confirmed; the name He'ershingenmosiken stayed unexplained.
- Ch 52 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales
Attention shifts to the Bunker Project
Politicization and lack of progress ended hopes of a miracle, and Fleet International and the UN turned to preserving civilization with known technology, via the Bunker Project.
- Ch 53 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Bunker Project: An Ark for Earth Civilization
Bunker Project outlined
The document lays out the Bunker Project: after rejecting stellar escape and long-distance avoidance, humanity would build fifty space cities in the shadows of the four gas giants to survive a dark forest strike on the Sun.
- Ch 55 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Motion Through Bending Space
Curvature propulsion explained
The excerpt describes space as curved and contrasts the impractical idea of folding space with curvature propulsion, which remained a mere dream until Yun Tianming's message was correctly interpreted.
- Ch 56 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales
Curvature 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.
- Ch 56 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales
Umbrella 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.
- Ch 56 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales
Expedition 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.
- Ch 56 · Broadcast Era, Year 7 Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales
Cao Bin deduces the black domain
Cao Bin realizes lowering light speed below 16.7 km/s would turn the Solar System into a black hole, solving the cosmic safety notice puzzle: a sealed, safe system.
- Ch 57 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Three Paths of Survival for Earth Civilization
Three survival paths outlined
The excerpt compares the Bunker Project, Black Domain Plan and Lightspeed Spaceflight Plan, weighing feasibility, protection and costs, and concludes all three should be pursued at once.
- Ch 58 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Fate’s Choice
Photoid 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.
- Ch 58 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Fate’s Choice
AA 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.
- Ch 58 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Fate’s Choice
Launch 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.
- Ch 58 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Fate’s Choice
Alarm declared false
Fleet International and the UN announce the dark forest strike alarm is false, ending unauthorized launches; the aftermath leaves burnt bodies and chaos at the spaceport.
- Ch 58 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Fate’s Choice
Public backlash against lightspeed ships
Revelations of secret stellar ships for the wealthy cause outrage over inequality before death, fueling resistance to the lightspeed ship plan.
- Ch 59 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Space Sentries: The Solar System Advance Warning System
Explanation of photoid advance warning
The excerpt explains that although photoids travel near lightspeed, their radiation outpaces them, giving roughly 24 hours' warning when the photoid is about 180 AU away, so thirty-five observation units are planned.
- Ch 60 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Fate’s Choice
Discovery of curvature propulsion trails
Observing the ruined Trisolaran system, Widnall and Vasilenko find transparent bubbles, realize they are lightspeed trails, and send an alarm-level report to Fleet Command and the PDC, which leaks and sparks panic.
- Ch 60 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Fate’s Choice
Lightspeed research banned
Because trails expose civilizations, Fleet International, the UN and nations prohibit curvature propulsion research, leaving only the Bunker Project and the Black Domain Plan.
- Ch 61 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time Terror of the Endless Night
Abandonment of lightspeed spaceflight research
Lightspeed ship research ended for reasons of concealment and safety, and also because humanity's painful history in space left it fearful. Elites split into supporters wanting galactic expansion and opponents fearing spread of totalitarianism.
- Ch 62 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point
Bunker Project simulation test
A hydrogen bomb detonated among asteroid stand-ins for the planets. Volunteers sheltered behind the fake Jupiter survived unharmed, and the broadcast brought cheers on Earth.
- Ch 62 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point
Wade asks for Cheng Xin's empire
Wade met Cheng Xin behind the Jupiter fragment, asking her to give him everything to build lightspeed ships and warning her not to repeat her past mistake.
- Ch 62 · Broadcast Era, Year 8 Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point
Cheng 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.
- Ch 63 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Bunker World
Cheng Xin awakens in Bunker Era
Cheng Xin wakes in Asia Hibernation Center #1 in a plain, low-tech world, recovers quickly, and is visited by Cao Bin, who says Thomas Wade wants her.
- Ch 63 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Bunker World
Tour of Space City Asia I
Cao Bin shows Cheng Xin that the city is a spinning cylinder behind Jupiter; they take a bus and elevator to the spaceport where she sees the Bunker World.
- Ch 63 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Bunker World
Tour of Jovian cities
Cao Bin takes Cheng Xin to North America I, Europe IV, Pacific I and unusual cities, showing the variety of Bunker World life.
- Ch 63 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Bunker World
Arrival at the Jovian cities
Cheng Xin and Cao Bin's dinghy reaches the outer edge of the Jovian cities, which appear as a small warm refuge before Jupiter, and Cheng Xin recalls a poem.
- Ch 64 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Lightspeed II
Visit to Lightspeed II
Cheng Xin and Cao Bin enter the ruined Lightspeed II, see the flickering blue glow of the black hole, and Cao Bin tells her its story.
- Ch 64 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Lightspeed II
高 Way falls into the black hole
高 Way entered the protective net and drifted into the black hole; observers see him eternally frozen at the event horizon, alive from outside but dead in his own frame.
- Ch 65 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Halo City
Curvature propulsion demonstration
In a sophon-free lab, Wade and Bi Yunfeng use Cheng Xin's hair to demonstrate curvature propulsion, moving it two centimeters, and argue lightspeed ships are near.
- Ch 65 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Halo City
Aftermath and Wade's execution
The Federation reveals the captured bullets, dissolves the Halo Group, arrests its leaders and sentences Wade to death. Cheng Xin visits him; he thanks her for cigars, and is executed by laser.
- Ch 65 · Bunker Era, Year 11 Halo City
Cheng 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.
- Ch 66 · Bunker Era, Year 67 Orion Arm of the Milky Way
Singer finds the dead three-star world already cleansed
Singer judges a long-membrane coordinate set sincere, but finds its star already destroyed with slow fog nearby. He files its records in the tomb.
- Ch 66 · Bunker Era, Year 67 Orion Arm of the Milky Way
Singer decodes the Star-Pluckers' exchange
Among the dead world's records Singer partly decodes three primitive membrane messages with the Star-Pluckers, learning their world is very near and hides nothing. He concludes they are dangerous.
- Ch 66 · Bunker Era, Year 67 Orion Arm of the Milky Way
Singer cleanses the Star-Pluckers
After the Elder refuses the big eye but approves a dual-vector foil, Singer discusses the war rumor and tosses the foil at the Star-Pluckers' system while singing.
- Ch 67 · Bunker Era, Year 67 Halo
Despair 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.
- Ch 68 · Bunker Era, Year 66 Outside the Solar System
Alien projectile detected
The advance warning system saw an alien ship pass near lightspeed and launch a gravitational-wave-emitting projectile that decelerated near 150 AU; Revelation and Alaska were sent to intercept.
- Ch 68 · Bunker Era, Year 66 Outside the Solar System
Examination of the paper slip
Drones, then Vasilenko and 白 Ice, found the slip intangible and unmovable; Revelation took it into its lab, but analysis revealed almost nothing.
- Ch 68 · Bunker Era, Year 66 Outside the Solar System
The slip collapses space
After the slip vanishes, the pinnace melts into a two-dimensional plane. Bai Ice explains that space is collapsing toward two dimensions and escape needs lightspeed.
- Ch 68 · Bunker Era, Year 66 Outside the Solar System
Revelation is flattened
Resigned, Revelation's crew shuts off the engine and falls into the plane, where they are flattened into two dimensions, seen by Alaska.
- Ch 69 · Bunker Era, Year 68 Pluto
Dark forest attack alert issued
The Federation president announces the dimensional strike, estimated to take eight to ten days, with no chance of escape.
- Ch 69 · Bunker Era, Year 68 Pluto
Choosing 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.
- Ch 70 · Bunker Era, Year 68 The Two-Dimensional Solar System
Luo 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.
- Ch 71 · Galaxy Era, Year 409 Our Star
Arrival 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.
- Ch 71 · Galaxy Era, Year 409 Our Star
Guan 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.
- Ch 71 · Galaxy Era, Year 409 Our Star
Alert from Planet Gray
At midnight, before departure, Hunter relays an alert from the monitoring satellite orbiting Planet Gray, waking Guan Yifan.
- Ch 71 · Galaxy Era, Year 409 Our Star
Journey 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.
- Ch 71 · Galaxy Era, Year 409 Our Star
Discovery of the death lines
Yifan and Cheng Xin land three kilometers from five death lines left by the unknown ships. Yifan explains them as zero-lightspeed trails associated with Zero-Homers who want to reset the universe.
- Ch 71 · Galaxy Era, Year 409 Our Star
Yun 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.
- Ch 71 · Galaxy Era, Year 409 Our Star
Death lines rupture
As the shuttle begins descent, a time vacuum hits and the death lines rupture, spreading over the system and cutting lightspeed below twenty km/s, killing all electronics and trapping the shuttle.
- Ch 71 · Galaxy Era, Year 409 Our Star
Hibernation in the shuttle
Yifan restores air and swaps to manual suits, starts the slow neural computer boot, and both take hibernation pills to survive the twelve-day wait.
- Ch 72 · About Seventeen Billion Years After the Beginning of Time Our Star
Awakening and exit from lightspeed
Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan wake after sixteen days, decelerate out of reduced lightspeed with antimatter engines, and find themselves inside the light tomb. They land on a purple Planet Blue.
- Ch 72 · About Seventeen Billion Years After the Beginning of Time Our Star
Dating the elapsed time
Radiometric dating shows about 18.9 million years have passed. Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan grieve having missed Tianming and AA, and then hold each other, surrendering to time.
- Ch 72 · About Seventeen Billion Years After the Beginning of Time Our Star
Discovery 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.
- Ch 73 · Outside of Time Our Universe
Entering Universe 647
Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan pass through the door into a time vacuum, then emerge into the small closed world of Universe 647 and realize its topology.
- Ch 73 · Outside of Time Our Universe
Meeting Sophon the manager
Sophon greets them as manager, explains the universe is Yun Tianming's gift meant to let them survive the great universe's collapse and see the new universe.
- Ch 73 · Outside of Time Our Universe
Life and study in the mini-universe
They farm with robots, learn Trisolaran script, and study the universe's construction. Over time Yifan grows troubled and tells Cheng Xin about 'loss of mass'.
- Ch 73 · Outside of Time Our Universe
The Returners' broadcast
A supermembrane broadcast from the great universe lists 1.57 million languages, including Trisolaran and Earth. Its message says the universe is becoming open and asks mini-universes to return their mass.
- Ch 73 · Outside of Time Our Universe
Decision to return
Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan decide to return to the great universe despite Sophon's warnings, to help prevent its eternal death.
- Ch 74 · Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time The Stairs of Responsibility
Reflection on the stairs of responsibility
The narrator reviews their life as an escalating series of responsibilities, from schooling and rocket engineering to the PIA, being Swordholder, and now responsibility for the universe's fate, framing it as every civilization's journey.
- Ch 75 · Outside of Time Our Universe
Dismantling Universe 647
Robots send all soil, floor, machinery, sky, house, sun, water and air through the door into the great universe, leaving only the ship and a few objects.