Death's End

“It was commonly thought that Infantilism was a response to an unprecedented threat to the entirety of civilization. That might have been true for individuals, but it was too simple an explanation when applied to humanity as a whole.”

Humanity’s first “Infantile” approaches to the Trisolaran Crisis demonstrate the problem of perspective. Because the Trisolarans will not arrive for 450 years, humans find it difficult to truly understand the threat and create an effective counterstrategy.

“They were polite to each other, but there was no trust. The technical experts kept to themselves and acted as if they were on guard against theft every minute. The intelligence veterans were gregarious and friendly—but they were constantly on the lookout for something to steal.”

In the early phase of the Trisolaran Crisis, organizations and groups that should be uniting into one community instead splinter into distrustful factions. Similarly, efforts to coordinate between nations break down as domestic politics influence the effectiveness of the projects. Earth seems doomed to failure as nations seek to increase their own power and position in the world rather than collaborating toward a greater purpose.

“No, but I know what I must do; I just haven’t done it. I got married three years ago, and my daughter just turned one. I’m not afraid to die, but my family matters to me. I don’t want them to see me turned into something worse than a corpse.”

Vadimov is split between competing allegiances. While he believes that he is the right candidate for the Staircase Project, he also feels a duty to his family. The Weight of Responsibility to his family and humanity ultimately make him unable to participate—his conflicting commitments will impede his ability to be an effective and focused spy.

“You’re talking about human society. Someone who feels comfortable with this environment has also learned to rely on it. Once one is cut off from the rest of humanity and finds oneself in a strange environment, one is very likely to suffer a fatal breakdown.”

Thomas Wade selects Yun Tianming for the Staircase Project because of Yun Tianming’s longstanding isolation from others, which has made him cynical, independently minded, and free from external commitments. In Wade’s mind, this makes Yun Tianming strong enough to enter an unfamiliar and hostile environment without being corrupted. In reality, however, it is Yun Tianming’s sole connection to Earth—through his love of Cheng Xin—that actually enables him to perform his mission and strengthens his resolve.

“The dark forest theory had a profound impact on human civilization. That child sitting by the ashes of the campfire turned from optimism to isolation and paranoia, a loner in the universe.”

As humanity learns more about the dark forest principle of the universe, its outlook on its place in the cosmos changes. At first, humanity looks to the stars in hopes of finding new worlds and adventure, but as the murderous nature of other civilizations becomes apparent, they quake in fear and turn toward hiding rather than exploration.

“Because you’d know that you could come back! Your soul would have remained on Earth. Only if the space behind the ship turned into a bottomless abyss—only if the Sun, the Earth, and everything else were swallowed by emptiness-would you have a chance of understanding the transformation that I went through.”

When the crew of Bronze Age return to Earth and are tried for crimes against humanity, they defend themselves by explaining how isolation in space changed their outlook. For a brief time, they lived in a completely different world without the security and comfort of Earth, and this new reality forced them into making survival decisions that prioritized brutal totalitarianism over communitarian idealism.

“You have no political experience, you are young, you lack the judgement to evaluate situations correctly, and you don’t possess the requisite psychological qualities to be the Swordholder. All you have is kindness and a sense of responsibility.”

Cheng Xin’s qualifications for the Swordholder position are unlike those of the male candidates. She represents humanity’s need to have a positive outlook on the future and progress—a hopeful view of deterrence as coexistence. Conversely, the men vying for the job represent a darker and more pragmatic approach that continues to view Trisolaris as an enemy waiting to strike.

“When she faced that distant world as the Swordholder, Cheng Xin, unlike Luo Ji, did not feel this was a life-or-death contest. She thought of it as a game of chess. She would sit tranquilly before the chessboard, thinking of all the openings, anticipating the opponent’s attacks, and devising her own responses. She was ready to spend her life playing this game.”

Cheng Xin takes a different approach to the Swordholder position than Luo Ji, seeing the role as a game and never truly preparing for the moment in which she may need to doom two civilizations; by doing so, she opens Earth up to a Trisolaran attack. This weakness is why Trisolaris wanted her as Swordholder in the first place.

“Outside the ship, the thin membrane of space-time rippled with the gravitational waves, like a placid lake surface disturbed by a night breeze. The judgement of death for both worlds spread across the cosmos at the speed of light.”

Cixin Liu uses many similes throughout Death’s End to illustrate the complex theoretical astrophysics concepts that underpin the plot—a common feature of science fiction. Grounding concepts like space-time and gravitational waves in visual comparisons, such as “a placid lake surface disturbed by a night breeze” helps convey aspects of advanced scientific thinking that most readers do not understand. Here, the simile explains that the broadcast interrupts the empty peacefulness of space, though there is an irony in describing this interruption as a “breeze”—the photoid attack that soon demolishes Trisolaris’s star system is anything but a gentle wind. 

“Sophon welcomed them in front of her house. Once again, she was dressed in a splendid kimono, and she wore fresh flowers in her bun. That vicious ninja dressed in camouflage had disappeared completely, and she was once again a woman who resembled a bubbling spring nestled among flowers.”

Sophon’s role in Death’s End changes frequently, as she oscillates between ally and antagonist. In this moment, she forsakes her militaristic dress and attitude to adopt the appearance of a diplomat, acting as an ambassador whose job is easing tensions in the aftermath of the Great Resettlement. Her welcoming house, elegant attire, and graceful execution of Earth rituals belie her role as a mirror of Yun Tianming—a spy embedded in an enemy civilization.

“The canopy is made from the dragon’s wing membranes, and the pole, handle, and ribs were all made from the dragon’s bones. The stones you see at the tips of the ribs were taken from the ashes of the dragon’s kidneys. The umbrella has the power to protect the user from being painted into a picture.”

Yun Tianming’s stories use metaphors to try to skirt Trisolaran censorship to convey to Earth technological ways to survive dark forest strikes. In this passage, the umbrella represents a black domain, which would prevent a photoid from entering the Solar System. Yun Tianming’s cunning and creativity bypass Trisolaran oversight, demonstrating his human resilience and resourcefulness.

“The shadows fought over the plank, and as the water splashed, the sound of the sharp teeth sawing through and crunching the wood could be heard. In a few moments, the shadows and the plank all disappeared.”

The glutton fish of Yun Tianming’s tales represent many different aspects of the universe. First, they prevent any ships from coming to the Storyless Kingdom, creating a barrier that resembles a black domain. Second, their predatory and aggressive impulse to destroy anything they see is an analogy for civilizations in the universe, which seeks to destroy other inhabited worlds to compete for resources.

“The princess had taken away the last bars of He’ershingenmosiken bath soap, and no one could break through the barriers formed by the schools of glutton fish. But no one complained. The people were used to their serene lives. After this story, there were never any other stories in the Storyless Kingdom.”

This moment from Yun Tianming’s fairytale not only foreshadows Cheng Xin’s eventual departure from the Solar System, but also nudges Earth to adopt the black domain approach to safety. Just as Princess Dewdrop escapes a kingdom doomed to isolation, so too does Cheng Xin escape a doomed Solar System that collapses into two-dimensions. If Yun Tianming’s fables were deciphered in full, humans would have been aware of this potential fate and have pursued light-speed travel and black domain technology more aggressively.

“Powerful and wealthy individuals who possessed light-speed ships could thus live in comfort on the Earth and then escape at the last minute, without regard for the billions left behind. This was a prospect society simply could not tolerate.”

In the novel, scientific research into light-speed travel runs into the political problem of wealth disparity, as critics point out how access to such travel could exacerbate inequality. While death is seen as an equalizer that comes for all and ignores no one, light-speed ships would allow some to escape a dark forest strike and doom others—a prospect humanity cannot accept.

“The sensation of being inside a world. A space city has to have ample interior volume and wide-open views so that the residents can feel they are living inside a world. Although the usable interior surface area isn’t too different from a hollow-shell design, in a wheel design, people always know that they are living inside a narrow tube or a series of such tubes.”

Humanity learns from the Bronze Age that feelings of disconnection from Earth can be devastating and society-altering. Therefore, when humanity moves to the Bunker World in space, they ensure that its cities feel as much like Earth as possible to stave off descent into totalitarianism. However, Thomas Wade’s city adopts such a system of government nonetheless.

“Wade lifted his head and looked at Cheng Xin with rarely seen helplessness and pleading. He spoke slowly. ‘If we lose our human nature, we lose much, but if we lose our bestial nature, we lose everything.’”

Thomas Wade is a foil to Cheng Xin. His priority throughout the novel is to propel human advancement and progress at any cost—drives he equates with the feral desire to explore and expand. He worries that if the black domain is set up, humanity will lose its core identity as seekers of the new and explorers.

“She had stopped a catastrophic war and she was becoming the target of the worship of millions. She could no longer live in this era. She wanted to see Earth civilization survive the dark forest strike and prosper after—it was the only hope that could comfort her heart.”

Cheng Xin often struggles with others’ perception of her. Here, despite her failure as Swordholder, she is once again heralded as a savior of humanity and becomes the object of adulation. However, burdened by guilt and feelings of duty, she does not want to accept this worship and instead seeks to go to a time in which her involvement in humanity’s survival is no longer needed.

“Hide yourself well; cleanse well.”

Singer’s motto is a lesson in survival in the dark forest universe and a warning to all civilizations. If a civilization fails to either hide or strike—or both—it is likely doomed. For example, Trisolaris cannot cleanse humanity, and its decision to make itself known to Earth makes it vulnerable to the kind of photoid strike that usually follows a planet’s location being revealed. Their further hubris in leaving a light-speed ship trail shows other civilizations in the universe that Trisolaris poses a threat and leads to its destruction.

“Images taken at close range showed the stars behind the slip, but due to interference from the white light it emitted and the dark background of space, it appeared as an opaque white from a distance. At least superficially, the object seemed harmless.”

The “slip” that looks like a piece of paper—actually a wildly powerful weapon that destroys the Solar System by collapsing it into two dimensions—shows humans exactly how low they rank in terms of power in the universe. The appearance of this weapon as small, plain, and seemingly harmless, hides its devastating ability. The contrast between what humans can imagine and what other civilizations are capable of is startling.

“Like then, Cheng Xin felt as though she were looking down upon an ant colony, and the black people-cloud looked just like a drifting swarm of ants.”

Humans are frequently compared to ants in Death’s End—imagery that highlights the strength and resiliency of the species. While ants appear to be small and weak, they are actually incredibly strong for their size and particularly unstoppable when they work together. The Trisolarans learn that humans also possess these qualities in their prolonged struggle to conquer Earth.

“A word of advice: In the future, no matter who you meet—human or otherwise—don’t ask for the location of their worlds. That’s a basic bit of manners in the cosmos—like how it’s impolite to ask a lady’s age.”

When AA and Cheng Xin meet Guan Yifan, AA asks about the location of the other human planets. Guan Yifan warns her never to ask or reveal that information, as it violates the principle of hiding that protects any sufficiently advanced civilizations in the universe. The security and secrecy of a world’s location is the best form of protection.

“For us, the dark forest state is all-important, but it’s just a detail of the cosmos. If you think of the cosmos as a great battlefield, dark forest strikes are nothing more than snipers shooting at the careless—messengers, mess men, etc. In the grand scheme of the battle, they are nothing. You have not seen what a true interstellar war is like.”

When Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan discuss the dark forest principle, Guan Yifan reveals that other species in the universe are much more violent, much more powerfully equipped, and much more brutal than humanity expected. Dark forest strikes are just minor maneuvers in the grand scheme of intergalactic wars that not only destroy civilizations, but also cripple the fabric of the universe itself.

“Simultaneously, their mini-universe could establish communications with the refugees of other Trisolaran mini-universes, or even with Galactic human migrants. In the new universe, all the migrants coming from the old universe would practically be one race, and should be able to work together to construct a new world.”

Survivors of the old universe arrive at the new universe united by their shared experiences. Many, if not all, of the refugees will know of the dark forest and the struggle to survive. The hope is that by having this in common, the “migrants” will more readily collaborate with one another, rather than building up the same system of self-interested violence and destruction.