Chapter 7 Logic Begins the Wall-Facing Period_2

Let's talk about the Trisolarans' strategems during the final period of The Deterrence Era.

During Cheng Xin's campaign for Swordholder, her conversations with Sophon were full of traps.

For example, "When we women are together, the world is a beautiful place, but our world is also fragile. We women must cherish all this."

This line reinforced Cheng Xin's desire to protect both worlds, thus lowering her deterrence level.

At the same time, Sophon also tried her best to ensure Cheng Xin's election as Swordholder, providing too many psychological suggestions that made Cheng Xin unwilling to press the "button."

Although these were low-level tricks, they were quite effective against someone like Cheng Xin, who was self-righteous, naive, and a sophisticated intellectual yet still a little girl.

After the deterrence ceased, Sophon's words "Don't blame yourself, the fact is that people chose you; they also chose this outcome. Out of all humanity, you alone are innocent."

Those words seemed to revive Cheng Xin in that possible fairy-tale world.

Here, one has to admire the Trisolarans; if the human world lost its vigilance towards them, they would play humans to death with ease.

In essence, although these strategems are rather primitive, the Trisolarans surely devoted massive resources during The Deterrence Era to calculating human psychological behavior models and strategem studies, thus significantly improving their tactics, but in terms of crafting entirely new schemes, they were quite weak.

Humans could easily break through their own limitations in terms of trickery, but Trisolarans could not; they had strong deductive abilities but lacked imagination.

It can be said that sometimes the more primitive the strategem, the more effective it is, and there is a saying that fits well.

The money of the poor is hard to earn but easy to deceive; the money of the rich is easy to earn but hard to deceive.

Trisolarans only needed to conform to the prevailing trend, pick the right target to deceive, and they would be invincible. It must be said that by that time, the Trisolarans had seen the core of strategems: the core of strategem lies in the trend of events. Seize the trend, and the simplest strategem can be deadly.

...

The next day, Logic first contacted the PDC's rotating chairman, requesting access to all major event archives of the human world from the Sophon's arrival on Earth, needing to understand all major events that had occurred over the years, as well as the investigation results from various governments.

Additionally, he requested access to all recent scientific achievements and contacted the Science Advisory Group of the PDC for consultation on scientific progress at any time.

This was naturally instructed by Lin Sen; to the PDC, the explanation was that one must know oneself to know one's enemy, and understanding the present was necessary to formulate appropriate plans.

Of course, Logic didn't need to explain, but Lin Sen knew the fate of all Wallfacers, so he set a rule for Logic.

All plans must be explained and must be credible to the public; a Wallfacer does not need to be understood, but a Wallfacer who is understood can survive for a longer time.

Logic's actions excited the PDC, which had already decided not to wait long for him; they would soon take some disgraceful measures if Logic did not produce any plans, causing some divisions within the PDC.

Seeing Logic start working, the previously planned disgraceful measures seemed unnecessary now. For the public, it was a shot in the arm, and it could be said that everything about the Wallfacer was part of the plan.

In the original timeline, the PDC's indulgence in all of Logic's actions was intentional.

When the PDC took Zhuang Yan away, Sayi's exclamation to Logic, "This is not part of the plan!" showed that the PDC's indulgence was neither unconditional nor a carte blanche to do whatever one wanted, simply because "This is part of the plan!"

For several months, Logic and Lin Sen were immersed in the vast archives, and Logic had been organizing all the major events of these years and their connections.

He had already noticed that Lin Sen was looking for something, aware that Lin Sen must have his own plan, just not knowing what it specifically entailed.

"I've finally found it!" suddenly exclaimed Lin Sen. The entire hall was cluttered with messy files, and both of them had been sitting on the floor sifting through these archives.

"Found what?" Logic looked towards the documents in Lin Sen's hands, wanting to see what they were.

"Wait a second!" Then Lin Sen pulled out several stacks of documents from other places, pointing to them and saying, "You see this... this... and this... what did you notice?"

Logic looked over these documents. The first was about the human government's crackdown on ETO, which left behind some of the materials. The second was about the early public opinion advocating for the anti-escape plan... and the last one detailed the proposal, discussion, and final implementation of the entire anti-escape plan.

"Is there any connection between these documents?" Logic was a bit puzzled.

"Look closely at the causes and effects of the anti-escape law's implementation and the public opinion propaganda at that time. Some parts simply don't make sense.

What's important is that the legislator who proposed the bill had links with ETO, even though this legislator's explanation was flawless.

But with so many coincidences, doesn't it suggest something? That the introduction of the anti-escape bill was vehemently supported by ETO!"

"Indeed, although these materials cannot directly prove a connection to ETO, they're inseparably linked. PDC isn't foolish—they just have to keep investigating, and they will surely uncover the relationship between them.

Although the exposed members of ETO have died for various reasons, they left behind many traces. It's probably that they didn't want to spend too much energy on such matters before! But why would ETO do this?"

"We don't need to know why, just that it must have been Trisolarans giving ETO these directives, and that's enough! It seems the Trisolarans still don't understand the true nature of the anti-escape law.

I won't even go into the first, second, and third levels; let them guess slowly. It's just strange, why wouldn't ETO enlighten the Trisolarans about the essence of the anti-escape law?

Certainly, they wouldn't tell the Trisolarans that the essence of escape is the fundamental human values issue of who goes and who stays? Are they genuinely lacking in intelligence, or are they harboring some malice?"

Lin Sen gave a slight smile, eerier than that of a Wallfacer, no one could tell what mischief he was holding back.

"You contact PDC to investigate these events. Only results from their personal investigations will carry more persuasive power. If there are connections between them, they are bound to have left many clues," Lin Sen instructed.

"Alright, leave it to me!" Logic replied and then went to contact PDC.

...

For reasons unknown, Sophon still chose to broadcast the recorded video to the upper echelons of ETO.

Without saying anything, Sophon sent out the video, somewhat resembling a silent reproach.

[Look at the mess you've made. I only tasked you with two missions. One, to assassinate Logic, which you failed to accomplish; and two, to promote the anti-escape plan, yet you left so many loopholes that they've been directly traced back to you. What if humans took the stance of, 'whatever the enemy opposes, I support?' What then?]

Actually, this was all conjecture on ETO's part; the new Sophon Governor, worried about leaking important information, had chosen not to communicate with ETO for the time being, preferring to guess humanity's stance on escape based on ETO's reactions. Trisolaris was indeed concerned about human escape.

ETO had indeed bungled many things over the years. The failed assassination of Logic was still forgivable, but the subsequent defamation was downright crazy.

Now, whomever you tried to assassinate, defame, or betray, he would become a hero.

Hence, after watching the video, ETO was on edge, fearing that more of such provocations would cause the Trisolarans to doubt their capabilities. With Sophon nearly cutting off communication, a few more incidents like this and ETO might as well pack up.

First Emperor of Qin thought it necessary to explain, "I've said before, humans will not allow escape. Unless you can take every single person on the globe, there will be endless debate about who goes and who stays. It's an unsolvable issue. For the unity within humanity, an anti-escape plan would inevitably be put forward. We didn't need to rush."

The Sophon Governor remained unresponsive, leaving the First Emperor of Qin with a sigh, unsure of what to say.

Turning to face John von Neumann, the First Emperor of Qin asked, "How confident are you?"

"I shall be the first to breach the wall!" John von Neumann declared confidently.

"Did you tell the Supreme about Tyler's plan?" First Emperor of Qin inquired.

"I have informed the Supreme, but... the Supreme has not responded at all!"

"I understand. Go, then, and destroy the Wallfacer's spirit!"

...