Death's End

Many people believe that the destruction of Star 187J3X1 was coincidental, and that Trisolaran terror of the dark forest theory is insufficient proof of its veracity.

The world largely forgets Cheng Xin’s failure as Swordholder, but Cheng Xin still feels immense despair over her actions. One night, Fraisse calls to tell her to look at a bright blue light illuminating the night sky. It is the destruction of the Trisolaran star system.

Trisolaris is destroyed three years and ten months after its location was broadcast from Gravity. Analysis of the object launched into one of Trisolaris’s three suns proves that this weapon, called a photoid, must have come from a nearby spaceship rather than from another star system. This incontrovertibly proves the dark forest theory and makes it more terrifying: Attacks could come from anywhere, at any time. This reduces how much time humanity has before a strike finds them and how much time they have to prepare.

Despite this new knowledge, Earth remains calm, once again hoping for a miracle.

The photoid destroyed the star closest to Trisolaris, eviscerating the planet and all life on it. Over tea, Sophon explains to Cheng Xin and Luo Ji that dark forest strikes are both casual and economical. This means that any knowledge of another system triggers attacks, which generally involve the use of small, inexpensive weapons. Sophon also posits that the attack on Trisolaris was so quick because Trisolaran civilization is advanced enough to appear dangerous. Luo Ji realizes that if Earth could somehow signal that they are harmless, they might prevent a strike.

Ideas for how to achieve a cosmic safety notice abound. Some suggest a return to an agrarian society; others propose hiding technological advancements; still others suggest broadcasting a message to the universe. Trisolaris provides no guidance, not wishing to help humanity or give it the technology to seek revenge.

In the meantime, religious faith resurges. Once again, Cheng Xin becomes a revered figure—no longer seen as a Swordholder who caused catastrophe, but as a protector intent on preserving human life. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Cheng Xin develops depression and prepares to die by suicide. Sophon invites her and Luo Ji to tea again, this time to say goodbye: Trisolaris is finally abandoning Earth completely. At tea, Sophon wishes them well and reveals to Cheng Xin that Yun Tianming is alive and wants to speak with her.

The Staircase Program is by now very old history; the assumption has been that Yun Tianming was lost in space. Whatever Trisolaran ship intercepted the probe containing his brain, must have done so in secrecy, diverting far from the fleet. Though the mystery of his survival is never solved, Yun Tianming appears at a critical moment and becomes the miracle the world hopes for.

Cheng Xin will meet Yun Tianming between the Sun and Earth, at the Lagrangian point where the gravity from each is equal. She is in a simple spaceship with three lights controlled by the Trisolarans: red, yellow, and green. As long as the green light stays on, Cheng Xin is safe. A yellow light is a warning that their conversation is unacceptable. If Cheng Xin and Yun Tianming ignore the yellow alert, the red light will go on and the ship will explode. No recording devices are allowed. Cheng Xin will try to memorize everything Yun Tianming says.

When Cheng Xin reaches the meeting place, a sophon appears and unfolds into a screen showing a golden field of wheat under a dome of glowing pipes. Yun Tianming is there, looking healthy and confident. They catch up, excited to see each other, but the yellow light comes on when Cheng Xin asks about the seeds Cheng Xin sent with the probe, and about the dome, which looks like an engine cooling system. Realizing that they cannot talk about anything substantive, Yun Tianming suggests revisiting fairy tales they told each other as children. Cheng Xin plays along with ruse, though in reality they did not know each other as children and never told fairy tales.

Yun Tianming has written many stories for the Trisolarans, and he shares three of them. The green light never wavers. As they say goodbye, Yun Tianming and Cheng Xin promise to one day meet at the star he gave her. Cheng Xin spends the return trip going over what he said.

The first conference of the Intelligence Decipherment Committee (IDC) meets in a sophon-blocking room to preserve the secrecy of their work. The head of the committee believes Yun Tianming’s stories likely contain hints about dealing with dark forest strikes. Yun Tianming must have embedded crucial information in his stories to get past Trisolaran censorship.

In the Storyless Kingdom, where nothing ever changes, the King has two sons: Prince Deep Water, trapped on Tomb Island in the Glutton’s Sea, and Prince Ice Sand, a troubled and cruel youth. As Ice Sand matures, he grows more polite, but the King still sees the cruelty inside him and instead names his daughter, Princess Dewdrop as his heir and throws a celebration to which Prince Ice Sand brings the new royal painter, Needle-Eye. Needle-Eye can paint someone perfectly after only looking at them for a second; at the party, he looks at the entire royal family and their court of ministers. Later that night, in a secret bunker, Prince Ice Sand sees how Needle-Eye trapped his teacher, Master Ethereal, in a painting, killing him. Prince Ice Sand directs Needle-Eye to do the same to the entire royal family and their loyal ministers, but to paint Princess Dewdrop last.

That night, Princess Dewdrop and her nanny, Auntie Wide, awaken and meet an old man holding a strange black umbrella that he constantly spins it so it will stay open. The man is Master Ethereal of He’ershingenmosiken, the teacher of Needle-Eye. He explains that the King, Queen, and ministers are dead. He adds that the umbrella keeps him from being trapped in the painting as long as it stays open from spinning. Master Ethereal must paint a portrait of Needle-Eye before dawn, but can only use special paper from the snow wave tree, flattened by black obsidian. When he cannot flatten enough of it in time, Master Ethereal sacrifices himself, gives the umbrella to Princess Dewdrop, and tells her to find Prince Deep Water, who cannot be painted by Needle-Eye without defying the principles of perspective. Auntie Wide, Princess Dewdrop, and a loyal captain of the guard leave, just as Needle-Eye finishes his painting of Princess Dewdrop.

The trio (Auntie Wide, Princess Dewdrop, and the captain of the guard) reaches the Glutton’s Sea, which is impassable because of the deadly glutton fish. The fish, which are also from He’ershingenmosiken, have unbreakable sharp teeth and an impressive appetite, consuming anything that enters the water. They were once small and used for drill bits and other useful purposes, but when a ship sank, it released many into the sea, where they grew immense. Now they crowd the water, trapping the Storyless Kingdom, stopping trade and returning the kingdom to an agrarian economy. Before bed, on the shore, Auntie Wide washes Princess Dewdrop’s face with a bar of soap from He’ershingenmosiken. When it touches the water, the soap makes many bubbles, lulling Princess Dewdrop into peaceful relaxation. Later that night, Princess Dewdrop and Captain Long-Sail ponder how to get to Prince Deep Water.

The next morning, they see Prince Deep Water as a giant on Tomb Island. Princess Dewdrop shouts to him, but he cannot hear her. By accident, the soap basin drifts into the water, caught waves. They wait anxiously for the glutton fish to eat it, but the fish are lulled by the bubbles just as the princess had been, leaving the basin alone. Long-Sail suggests taking a boat to Tomb Island, using the soap to clear a path where the glutton fish won’t attack. As they near the island, Prince Deep Water seemingly shrinks. When they land, his retinue explains that he always looks the same size from whatever distance one views him at. Princess Dewdrop explains Prince Ice Sand’s crimes and the royal siblings return to the mainland to take back the throne. They meet Prince Ice Sand’s forces, which immediately forsake him for his siblings.

At the castle, Needle-Eye tells Prince Ice Sand that his brother is back from Tomb Island. Although Needle-Eye can see him, he cannot paint him, not knowing the correct style to capture someone who defies perspective. Prince Ice Sand prepares to face his brother; he is the one who tricked Prince Deep Water into going to Tomb Island just before the glutton fish surrounded it. They fight, and Prince Deep Water kills his brother. During the duel, Captain Long-Sail searches for Needle-Eye, but finds only a painting—the painter has trapped himself in his own work. Captain Long-Sail burns the painting of Princess Dewdrop, so she is safe and no longer needs the umbrella. Princess Dewdrop relinquishes the throne to Prince Deep Water; she and the captain take the bar of soap and sail off to see the world.

A literature scholar declares that the stories, while great, are too ambiguous to decipher. The committee makes little progress finding meaning in the many metaphors; for example, they cannot find any real place resembling He’ershingenmosiken. Soon, the group splinters, with each faction using the stories to support their own plans.

Yun Tianming’s stories remain a mystery, so Earth pivots to implementing the Bunker World Project: constructing massive space cities hidden behind the outer planets of the Solar System, which, according to modeling, will shield them from the destruction of the Sun. Once the Sun is gone, the cities can sustain themselves by collecting resources from the destroyed star and other planets.

One day, AA tells Cheng Xin that she wants to take a bath with a bar of soap. Bars of soap are long out of use; they can only find one in a museum, which demands a hefty price for it. As AA runs the water, she asks Cheng Xin to fold an origami boat. AA then puts a piece of soap in a hole in the stern of the little boat. When the boat hits the water, the soap propels the boat forward. Both Cheng Xin and AA immediately see that this is an analogy for curvature propulsion, a pathway to light-speed travel, but they say nothing in case sophons are watching.

Space is curved. Curvature propulsion relies on the notion that if “a spaceship could somehow iron flat the space behind it and decrease its curvature, the more curved space in front of it would pull it forward” (367).

The IDC confirms Cheng Xin and AA’s theory as the correct reading of Yun Tianming’s second story. They realize that Yun Tianming’s tales are actually examples of greater ideas on a small, everyday scale. In this case, the soap in the boat on the way to Tomb Island is an example of curvature propulsion played out in the real world. Next, the committee studies the umbrella and Prince Deep Water defying perspective; these hint at reducing the speed of light within the Solar System, though to what end, they cannot discern. A breakthrough occurs when the girlfriend of a linguist on the team recognizes He’ershingenmosiken as the ancient names of Mount Helseggen and the island of Mosken in Norway.

When AA and Cheng Xin take a team to the mountain, their local guide tells them they cannot take a boat to the island because of a maelstrom that traps boats. The team goes into the maelstrom anyway. Although they are spinning, they cannot tell that they are moving unless they look up at the sky. These examples of relative perspective and inescapable whirlpool mean that Yun Tianming’s story is suggesting reducing the speed of light in the Solar System. A slower light-speed would mean nothing from Earth could reach escape velocity (the speed needed to break away from the Sun’s gravity and leave the Solar System). The rest of the universe will thus see that humans pose no threat of attack. Additionally, if the speed of light is different inside and outside of the Solar System, any photoid that crosses the threshold will be destroyed.

However, the team cannot decipher Needle-Eye’s paintings.

Three plans to survive a dark forest strike are in the works. The first is the Bunker World Project—space cities in the distant reaches of the Solar System. The second is the Black Domain Plan: reducing light-speed in the Solar System to protect it from photoids. This would protect humans, but limit their technological capability and permanently shut them off from the universe. Third is the Light-Speed Spaceflight Plan, which faces intense pushback because of its association with “Escapism.”

Cheng Xin begins working more closely with her company, Halo Group, to support the construction of Bunker World cities and light-speed ships. One day, the advanced warning system reports that a dark forest strike is coming. AA and Cheng Xin rush to the spaceport only to watch in horror as some ships launch prematurely; as they melt the ground below them, they kill all bystanders and prevent other ships from even moving. AA wants to flee, but Cheng Xin refuses.

They wait, sure that this is the end, until a second report confirms that this was a false alarm. The incident shows that the rich and powerful can easily escape Earth in case of disaster, creating inequality that will become worse with light-speed ships. Research into light-speed travel now faces intense opposition.

Thirty-five observation units are placed around the Solar System as an advanced warning system: The radiation from any approaching photoids will reach these outposts first, giving humanity time to react. But the warning system will only work if the photoid is launched from a great distance, and not a nearby spaceship.

Two days before the false alarm, the scientist and military officer posted on Observation Unit #1 look toward the Trisolaran system and notice what appears to be a soap bubble in space. They find another, bigger bubble exactly where the Second Trisolaran Fleet initiated light-speed. The fleet entered light-speed far from their system to hide their location; these tell-tale bubbles are what made them look so dangerous to other civilizations. The scientist and officer trigger the false alarm, which leads to the outlawing of light-speed space flight, leaving only the Bunker World Project and the Black Domain Plan.

After the ban on research into light-speed travel, one faction on Earth believes that human safety rests in expansion and the discovery of new worlds. They are for the Bunker World Project, but vehemently oppose the Black Domain Plan, scared it will trap humanity. An opposing faction, scared of what happened on the Bronze Age, wants to preserve humanity and accepts the Black Domain as the best way.

Cheng Xin returns to the Lagrangian point between the Sun and the Earth to witness the first test of the Bunker World. Meteoroids are strategically placed around a powerful bomb to simulate how the planets of the Solar System will endure a dark forest strike on the Sun. Cheng Xin is behind the fake Jupiter; her ship is meant to show how a bunker city can survive. After the test, which is successful, Thomas Wade asks her to give him control of Halo Group so he can continue researching light-speed travel in secret. She agrees, on the condition that if she deems his work dangerous for humans, he must relinquish control and stop. He begrudgingly agrees and she signs everything over to him. Cheng Xin and AA go into hibernation.