Death's End

Chinese and Korean names in this text are rendered with surnames first and given names last, in accordance with the customs of these cultures. For example, in the name Yun Tianming, YUN is the surname and TIANMING is the given name. CHARACTERS FROM T Read the whole passage

Common Era Present201X C.E. Crisis Era 201X2208 Deterrence Era 22082270 Post-Deterrence Era 22702272 Broadcast Era 22722332 Bunker Era 23332400 Galaxy Era 2273unknown Black Domain Era for DX3906 System 268718906416 Timeline for Universe 647 18906416 Read the whole passage

I suppose this ought to be called history; but since all I can rely on is my memory, it lacks the rigor of history. Its not even accurate to call it the past, for the events related in these pages didnt occur in the past, arent taking place now, and w Read the whole passage

Pausing to collect himself, Constantine XI pushed away the pile of city-defense maps in front of him, pulled his purple robe tighter, and waited. His sense of time was very accurate: The tremor came the moment he expected it, a powerful, violent quak Read the whole passage

Crisis Era, Year 1 The Option for Life Yang Dong wanted to save herself, but she knew there was little hope. She stood on the balcony of the control centers top floor, surveying the stopped particle accelerator. From her perch, she could take in the e Read the whole passage

After Dr. Zhangs regular checkup on Yun Tianming, he left a newspaper with him, saying that since Tianming had been in the hospital for so long, he should be aware of what was happening in the world. There was a TV in Tianmings room, so he was puzzled Read the whole passage

Many of the events during the first twenty years of the Crisis Era were incomprehensible to those who came before and those who came after; historians summarized them under the heading of Crisis Infantilism. It was commonly thought that Infantilism wa Read the whole passage

The day after making his decision to buy Cheng Xin a star, Yun Tianming called the number listed on the website for the Chinese office of the Stars Our Destination Project. Then he called Hu Wen to get some basic information about Cheng Xin: contact Read the whole passage

The start of the Trisolar Crisis coincided with Cheng Xins completion of her graduate studies, and she was selected to join the task force working on the design of the propulsion system for the next generation of Long March rockets. To others, this se Read the whole passage

A new technology can transform society, but when the technology is in its infancy, very few people can see its full potential. For example, when the computer was first invented, it was merely a tool for increasing efficiency, and some thought five com Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin went to Sanya on Hainan Island to research hibernation. This tropical island seemed an incongruous site for the largest hibernation research center, which was operated by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. While it was the middle of wi Read the whole passage

In fourteenth-century China, during the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese navy invented a weapon called Huolong Chu Shui, literally meaning fiery dragon issuing from water. This was a multistage gunpowder rocket similar in principle to antiship missiles of th Read the whole passage

The mass launch of Peacekeeper missiles had been in process for over half an hour. Trails from six missiles merged together, and, lit up by the moon, resembled a silvery road that reached into heaven. Every five minutes, another fiery ball ascended th Read the whole passage

Mikhail Vadimov died. While crossing the Harlem River on I-95, his car slammed through the guardrails on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge and plunged into the water below. It took more than a day before the car could be retrieved. An autopsy revealed tha Read the whole passage

It was now possible to see the Earth with the naked eye from the view window of Bronze Age. As the ship decelerated, those who werent on duty came to the open space at the stern to observe the Earth through the wide portholes. At this distance, the Ea Read the whole passage

When humanity finally learned that the universe was a dark forest in which everyone hunted everyone else, the child who had once cried out for contact by the bright campfire put out the fire and shivered in the darkness. Even a spark terrified him. Du Read the whole passage

Most of the crew aboard Bronze Age attributed the sudden cessation of all signals from the Earth to the complete conquest of the Solar System by Trisolaris. Bronze Age accelerated and headed for a star with terrestrial planets twenty-six light-years Read the whole passage

The Bronze Age case was tried by a Solar System Fleet court-martial. Although Fleet Internationals main facilities were located near the orbit of Mars, the asteroid belt, and the orbit of Jupiter, due to the intense interest in the case from Earth In Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin gazed up at her star from the top of a giant tree. It was why she had been awakened. During the brief life of the Stars Our Destination Project, a total of fifteen individuals were granted ownership of seventeen stars. Other than Cheng Xin, Read the whole passage

Without a doubt, Luo Jis creation of dark forest deterrence against Trisolaris was a great achievement, but the Wallfacer Project that led to it was judged a ridiculous, childish act. Humanity, like a child entering society for the first time, had las Read the whole passage

Cheng Xins recovery proceeded apace. The doctors told her that even if all ten seven-millimeter bullets in the gun had struck her, and even if her heart had been shattered, modern medicine was capable of reviving her and fixing her up good as newthoug Read the whole passage

After the creation of deterrence, the World Academy of Sciencesan international organization at the same level as the UNwas founded to receive and digest the scientific and technical information transmitted to Earth from Trisolaris. People first predi Read the whole passage

On the day of Cheng Xins discharge, AA told her that Sophon wanted to meet her. Cheng Xin understood that AA wasnt referring to the subatomic particles endowed with intelligence sent by Trisolaris, but to a woman, a robot woman developed by the most a Read the whole passage

Gravity had been pursuing Blue Space for half a century. It finally approached its target. Only three AU separated the hunter and the hunted. Compared to the 1.5 light-years that the two ships had traversed, this was mere inches. A decade ago, Gravit Read the whole passage

Near the beginning of the Crisis Era, as Trisolaris sent sophons toward the Earth, it also launched six sophons at near-lightspeed to explore other regions of the galaxy. All of these sophons soon entered blind regions and lost contact with home. The Read the whole passage

Losing the sophons was not fatal to Gravitys mission, though it did make the job much harder. Before, the sophons could enter Blue Space at will and report on everything that was going on; now Blue Space appeared to Gravity as a sealed box. Moreover, Read the whole passage

The high-speed elevator continued to descend, and the increasing layers of earth above seemed to put all their weight on Cheng Xins heart. Half a year ago, a joint session of the UN and the Solar System Fleet had elected Cheng Xin to succeed Luo Ji as Read the whole passage

The first dark forest deterrence system consisted of more than three thousand nuclear bombs wrapped in an oil film substance deployed in orbit around the sun. After detonation, the film would cause the sun to flicker and broadcast the location of Tris Read the whole passage

With a deep rumble, the meter-thick heavy steel door opened and Cheng Xin and the others walked into the heart of the dark forest deterrence system. More emptiness and openness greeted Cheng Xin. This was a semicircular hall, with the curved wall faci Read the whole passage

The white wall turned bloody red, as though the hellish magma behind it had burned through. Highest alert. A line of white text appeared against the red background, each character a terrifying scream. Incoming strong-interaction space probes detected. Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin rode the elevator to the surface. Exiting the elevator station, she saw the plaza where the deterrence handover ceremony had taken place an hour ago. All the attendees had left, and the place was empty save for the long shadows cast by the f Read the whole passage

The most important factor in the failure of deterrence was, of course, electing the wrong Swordholder. This is a topic that will be addressed elsewhere in a dedicated chapter. For now, lets focus on the technical weaknesses in the system design that c Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin walked toward the officers and asked them to take her to the site of the eruption. A lieutenant colonel in charge of security for the compound immediately dispatched two cars: one to take her, the other to carry a few guards for security. Ch Read the whole passage

On the thirty-eighth day after the end of deterrence, the Ringier-Fitzroy observation station at the outer rim of the asteroid belt discovered 415 new trails in the interstellar dust cloud near the Trisolaran star system. Apparently, Trisolaris had se Read the whole passage

Exactly when the rate of Trisolaran technological progress had shifted from constant to explosive was a mystery. Some scholars believed that the acceleration began before the Crisis Era; others believed that the forward leap didnt happen until the Det Read the whole passage

For the first time since the end of deterrence, Sophon appeared. Still dressed in camouflage and wearing the katana on her back, she announced to the world that the Second Trisolaran Fleet would arrive in four years to complete the total conquest of t Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin stood in front of Elder Fraisses house and surveyed the Great Victoria Desert shimmering in the heat. Simple, just-completed shelter-houses were packed densely, as far as the eye could see. Under the noonday sun, the plywood and sheet-metal Read the whole passage

When the klaxons announced the droplet attack, only one man aboard Gravity felt a sense of relief: James Hunter, the oldest on the crew. He was seventy-eight, and everyone called him Old Hunter. Half a century ago, at Fleet Command in Jupiters orbit, Read the whole passage

The noises around her quieted down, and Cheng Xin could hear voices coming from the information window over the city government tent. She could tell one of the voices belonged to Sophon, in addition to two others. But she was too far away to make out Read the whole passage

Its possible to detect the warped points using the naked eye, Chu Yan said. But the best way is to monitor the electromagnetic radiation. The emission from these points is very faint, but it has a distinct spectral signature. The regular sensors on ou Read the whole passage

艾 AA told Cheng Xin that her eyes were even prettier and brighter than before, and perhaps she wasnt lying. Cheng Xin had been mildly myopic before, but now she saw everything with extreme clarity, as though the world had been given a fresh coat of Read the whole passage

For sixty-some yearsthe entirety of the Deterrence Eradark forest theory formed the backdrop to human history. But scholars had always questioned it, and until the start of the Broadcast Era, there had never been any scientific proof for its validity. Read the whole passage

After the dust settled, humanity turned its attention from the universal broadcast to reflecting on the end of the Deterrence Era. A veritable flood of accusations and denunciations against the Swordholder began to appear. If Cheng Xin had activated t Read the whole passage

Trisolaris was shattered three years and ten months after the start of the Broadcast Era. No one had expected the attack to come so soon after the gravitational wave broadcast. Since Trisolaris had always been under intense surveillance, plenty of dat Read the whole passage

For the first time, humanity witnessed the extinction of a civilization, and realized such a fate might befall Earth at any moment. The threat of Trisolaris, a crisis that had lasted close to three centuries, dissipated overnight, yet what took its pl Read the whole passage

After the conversation between Sophon, Cheng Xin, and Luo Ji was publicized, everyone began to ponder the problem of how to broadcast a safety notice. Countless proposals flooded in, sent by sources as august as the World Academy of Sciences and as hu Read the whole passage

Although there were no clues for how to send out a true safety notice, and any serious research only confirmed the impossibility of such an endeavor, the publics yearning for the notice could not be stopped. Although most people understood that none o Read the whole passage

Near the beginning of the Crisis Era, before the Great Ravine had extinguished humanitys enthusiasm, the nations of the Earth had banded together and accomplished a series of great deeds for the defense of the Solar System. These gigantic engineering Read the whole passage

Viewed through the portholes in the elevator, Cheng Xins entire world consisted of an eighty-centimeter- thick guide rail. The guide rail extended endlessly both above and below her, shrinking into invisibility in each direction. She had been riding f Read the whole passage

The first meeting of the Intelligence Decipherment Committee (IDC) was also conducted in a sophon-free room. Although most people now favored the view that the sophons were gone, and the Solar System and the Earth were now clean, they still took this Read the whole passage

A long time ago, there was a kingdom called the Storyless Kingdom. This kingdom had no stories. For a kingdom, not having any stories was a good thing. The people of such a kingdom were the happiest. Stories meant twists and catastrophes. The Storyles Read the whole passage

Once they were outside the palace, the captain drove the horses as fast as they would go. All three were anxious. In the brightening darkness, they felt danger looming in every shadowy copse and field they passed. After the sky brightened even more, t Read the whole passage

The next time Princess Dewdrop awakened, it was light out. The sea had turned from black to blue, but the princess still thought it looked completely different from pictures she had seen. The vastness that had been hidden by night now lay bare. Under Read the whole passage

In the sophon-free room, those who had finished reading began to talk amongst themselves, though most were still absorbed in the world of the Storyless Kingdom, the sea, the princess and the princes. Some remained deep in thought; some stared at the d Read the whole passage

I.Projected timeframe from exposure of Earths coordinates to dark forest strike against the planet: optimistic scenario, one hundred to one hundred fifty years. Average scenario: fifty to eighty years. Pessimistic scenario: ten to thirty years. Plans Read the whole passage

As preparations for the Bunker Project got underway, Yun Tianming faded from the public consciousness. The IDC continued to work on deciphering the message, but it was only treated as one of the PDCs many projects. The hope for retrieving important st Read the whole passage

Space wasnt flat, but curved. If one imagined the universe as a large, thin membrane, the surface would be shaped like a bowl. The entire membrane might even be an enclosed bubble. Though at the local scale, the membrane seemed flat, the curvature of Read the whole passage

A jubilant AA said to Cheng Xin, Before the Deterrence Era, clothes with animated images were popular. Back then, everyone looked like blinking Christmas trees, but now, only children dress like that. Classical looks are in vogue again. But AAs eyes w Read the whole passage

I.The Bunker Project: This was the plan with the most hope for success, because it was based entirely on known technologies and involved no theoretical unknowns. In some sense, the Bunker Project could be viewed as a natural continuation of the develo Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin came to the headquarters of the Halo Group. This was her first time here. She had never participated in its operation because, subconsciously, she never thought of the enormous wealth as truly hers, or Yun Tianmings. They possessed that star Read the whole passage

The Earth had observed photoids only twice in the past: the destruction of 187J3X1 and of the Trisolaran system. Knowledge about the phenomenon was thus limited. All that was known was that a photoid moved at close to the speed of light, but there was Read the whole passage

Two days before the false alarm; Observation Unit #1 Observation Unit #1 was in fact just the Ringier-Fitzroy Station from the end of the Crisis Era. More than seventy years ago, it was this observation station that had first discovered the strong-int Read the whole passage

Superficially, research and development of lightspeed spaceflight died for obvious reasons: to avoid advance exposure of the existence of Earth civilization by the trails generated from curvature propulsion, and to prevent increasing the Solar Systems Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin once again returned to the point in space where the Suns and the Earths gravities balanced each other out. A year had passed since the meeting with Yun Tianming, and she was far more relaxed for this trip. She was here as a volunteer for the Read the whole passage

#37813, your hibernation is at an end. You have been in hibernation for 62 years, 8 months, 21 days, and 13 hours. Your remaining hibernation allotment is 238 years, 3 months, 9 days. This is Asia Hibernation Center #1, Bunker Era, Year 11, May 9, 2:1 Read the whole passage

The final destination of Cheng Xin and Cao Bin was Halo City, a medium space city. Medium cities were space cities whose interior areas were below two hundred square kilometers but above fifty square kilometers. Typically, these cities were mixed with Read the whole passage

As they approached Halo City, Cheng Xin and Cao Bins dinghy encountered the Federation Fleets blockade line. More than twenty stellar-class warships surrounded Halo City, and the blockade had lasted two weeks already. The stellar-class ships were imme Read the whole passage

Examining the data was Singers job; judging the sincerity of the coordinates was Singers joy. Singer understood that what he did wasnt importantit just filled in the pieces. But it had to be done, and the task was enjoyable. Speaking of enjoyment, whe Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin awakened to find herself in weightlessness. Hibernation wasnt like regular sleep. A hibernator didnt feel the passage of time. Throughout the entire process, one could only feel time during the hour spent entering hibernation and the hour em Read the whole passage

A year before Cheng Xins awakening, the advance warning system discovered an unknown flying object sweeping past the edge of the Oort Cloud at a speed close to lightspeed. At its closest approach, the object was only 1.3 light-years from the Sun. The Read the whole passage

Lets head back to the Earth, Cheng Xin said softly. This was the first idea that floated up through the chaos and darkness of her jumbled thoughts. The Earth is not a bad place to wait for the end. A falling leaf seeks to return to the root. But we ho Read the whole passage

Cheng Xin and AA carried the first batch of artifacts to the surface. Other than a dozen or so frameless paintings, they also carried two bronze ritual vessels from the Western Zhou Period and some ancient books. Under standard 1G gravity, they would Read the whole passage

Halo shut off the curvature engine and coasted at lightspeed. During the voyage, AA tried to comfort Cheng Xin, even though she knew this was a hopeless task. Its ridiculous for you to blame yourself for the destruction of the Solar System. Who do you Read the whole passage

It took a long time to wake up. Cheng Xin recovered her awareness gradually. After her memory and sight came back, she knew right away that the neural computer had booted successfully. A soft light illuminated the inside of the cabin, and she could he Read the whole passage

Primordial darkness. Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan were once again immersed in a time vacuum. The sensation was similar to when they had entered reduced lightspeed back in the shuttle. Time did not flow here, or maybe it was more accurate to say that time Read the whole passage

All my life has been spent climbing up a flight of stairs made of responsibility. When I was little, my only duty was to study hard and obey my parents. Later, in high school and college, the responsibility to study hard continued, but there was also Read the whole passage

Through Universe 647s control system, Sophon managed to move the mini-universes exit inside the great universe. The door moved quickly through the great universe, searching for a habitable world. The amount of information that the door could transmit Read the whole passage

Im indebted to the following beta readers for their invaluable help during the translation process: Anatoly Belilovsky, John Chu, Elas Combarro, Rachel Cordasco, Derwin Mak, Alex Shvartsman, and Igor Teper. All translators should be so lucky. Im also Read the whole passage