Chapter 172: A Preliminary Investigation of Trisolaran Social Structures_1

Crisis Era 130 years.

In the original timeline, by this year the Three Great Space Fleets had begun to become independent states.

In the current human civilization, the concept of the state was increasingly less mentioned, with humanity mainly divided into the Moon Camp and Earth Camp.

This year, the changes in humanity were not significant, but the Trisolaran world went through violent transformations.

The reason still traced back to Lin Sen's resource exchange plan.

Due to Earth's breakthrough of the Moon's blockade, competition between the Moon and Earth was exceptionally fierce. In Crisis Era 110, the Moon Camp gave up on Lin Sen's High-Energy Particle Accelerator Spacecraft project.

The project, which had seen no hope even after such a long investment, was deemed Lin Sen's most failed plan; up to now, humans had spent countless resources to build a total of 120 High-Energy Particle Accelerator Spacecraft, but nothing had changed.

What people didn't know was that humanity was really just one step away.

If the High-Energy Particle Accelerator Spacecraft project had not been stopped, then Crisis Era 110 would have been the year when humanity broke the Sophon's blockade on human technology, a year that could have been eternally remembered in history.

Humanity would have truly escaped the Trisolaran crisis and embarked toward the sea of stars. The Trisolarans would have had to consider how to deal with the inevitable invasion by future Earthly humans.

History has no ifs, and humanity lost that once-in-a-millennium opportunity. Sometimes life is just like that; opportunities often come at the very moment you give up.

The Trisolarans felt relief.

Relieved that the Earth Camp broke through the Moon blockade in Crisis Era 109, even though the Trisolarans did not anticipate that space elevators could be used to smuggle warships;

Relieved that the commanders of the Moon Camp failed to see through the Earth Camp's breakout plan, they had accustomed themselves to think that even if the Earth Alliance had warships, they would have to launch directly from the ground, thus they primarily surveilled the near-Earth orbit, never expecting Earth's warships to appear right over their heads;

Relieved that the Moon's blockade forces treated the attack on Earth's Mini Starport as a game, laxity in form and arrogance in mindset were the main reasons for this failure;

Relieved that Feng Zi, who had monitor access to the Sophon, was in hibernation. Had Feng Zi not been hibernating, the Trisolarans wouldn't have believed that Feng Zi would not stop them;

All of these were one-in-ten-thousand chances. Yet these tiny probabilities all happened simultaneously, the Trisolarans not collapsing from dehydration was a testament to their strong psyche.

...

We can hardly imagine the kind of torment and disasters the Trisolarans had to endure during those nearly one hundred years of the resource exchange plan, especially when humanity was on the verge of breaking the Sophon's blockade.

According to Trisolaran records, the resource exchange plan caused a "Great Depression" for the Trisolarans, reducing their population by at least 16%, which is about one billion Trisolarans.

(Based on the original work's speculation, the Trisolarans fled with four fleets, each with 1000 warships, accounting for three-thousandths of the total population. Assuming more than 50,000 dehydrated Trisolarans per warship, the total Trisolaran population was about 6 billion.)

The Great Depression of the Trisolarans was not an environmental factor; although creating Sophons required a lot of resources and Trisolaran had been in absolute darkness, the remaining fleets of Trisolaris didn't start to build either. To this day, the Trisolarans still have only the Trisolaris First Fleet.

But this was nothing to the Trisolarans; they had experienced natural disasters much fiercer than this. The "Great Depression" of the Trisolarans was more of a mental and intellectual nature.

The Trisolarans have a rational group mentality, similar to that of ant and bee colonies, with a highly uniform mindset throughout society and only varied by division of labor.

When the external environment changes dramatically, they would split, just like ant and bee colonies. This is a simple evolutionary philosophy of preservation, simply put, not to put all your eggs in one basket.

When faced with huge changes and no one knowing which choice was more correct, groups would diverge and split, forming different communities. They would choose different paths to increase the probability of survival amid severe environmental changes.

Lin Sen's isolated island plan was essentially a path of civilization divergence then reunification.

The social structure of Trisolaran was fundamentally different from that of Earth, even somewhat incomprehensible to us, too contradictory.

Before we go on, let's first analyze No. 1379; he and Ye Wenjie are the greatest traitors of the two civilizations. Through him, we might glimpse just the tip of the iceberg of Trisolaran society.

Ye Wenjie thought of higher civilizations having superior morals and wanted to use a superior civilization to save the sins of Earth. Although she was a traitor, she had aspirations and even wanted to save Earth—everyone has their own opinion, so no more analysis here.

After prolonged solitude, No. 1379 underwent a psychological transformation; his mind was taken over by selfishness, weariness, revenge, and love.

To say he was selfish could be misleading; he, who once feared no death, now dreaded losing his job due to aging, facing forced dehydration and incineration. He had always longed for a chance to escape it all, and fatefully, that chance did come to him.

To say he was weary, the Trisolaran civilization, in its pursuit of survival for the whole, had almost no respect for the individual. Any person who could no longer work had to die. He tired of such a society; as a small figure living at the very bottom, he went unnoticed, lived a life of solitude, devoid of wealth, status, love, or hope.

He couldn't even find a partner, to bestow the nourishment of new life on his own body; he grew weary of himself, society, and everything else.

To say he was vengeful, loneliness and insignificance defined him entirely, to the point where he questioned himself more than once: even if he did one day receive a message from an alien civilization, what would it have to do with him?

Perhaps, rather than a grand ideal to save Earth, it stemmed from a personal vendetta, a small man's revenge on society. In that moment, he became the deity of civilization.

When one becomes the person who can decide the fate of an entire civilization, that is also when the desire for self-destruction is most intense.

To say he loved, his anticipation for a distant civilization inspired a hope he wished to grasp even in dreams, making his life not altogether in vain.

The metal-like Trisolaran spirit had solidified in every cell of theirs, and Number 1379 longed to melt that metallic Trisolaran spirit.

Number 1379's love for human civilization was idealistic; his own fervent love for his civilization meant that he hoped for Trisolaris to find redemption, not much different from Ye Wenjie in essence.

Through Number 1379, we can infer many characteristics of Trisolaran society:

First, Trisolarans actually have a much stronger tendency toward self-destruction than humans; the stronger their desire to possess living space, the more severe their tendency for self-destruction might be. Ye Wenjie struggled for hours before replying, but Number 1379 replied in an instant. At that moment, Number 1379 saw himself as a messianic deity.

Essentially, Ye Wenjie, Number 1379, and Lin Sen may all be the same type of people, nurturing the impulse to destroy as they wield the sword, unable to distinguish clearly between saviors and destroyers.

Second, Trisolaran society is incredibly indifferent, showing no mercy toward their own civilization. It wasn't just Number 1379 who was indifferent; when Logic threatened Trisolaris, the Trisolaran higher-ups didn't even hesitate or struggle before abandoning the First Fleet.

Third, the extreme division between the lower and upper classes fuels immense dissatisfaction among the lower ranks. The upper classes' attitude toward the lower ranks is one of indifference, a pervasive indifference in all aspects. There is extreme autocracy but no institutional rigidity, something beyond the reach of human societies.

Fourth, the lower ranks also aspire to freedom and beauty, which is the driving force behind the development of Trisolaran society. They are not an absolutely rational collective consciousness and must often undergo social and ideological revolutions, but changes are still aimed at ensuring living space for the civilization.

Fifth, despite Trisolarans having an extremely resilient spirit, anything potentially leading to vulnerability is considered evil. However, there's no strong societal control over the ordinary Trisolaran spirit. You are free to pursue what you want, but I will condemn you, there is a strong sense of tolerance.

In the original story, an important contradiction arises: Number 1379, a mere lowly commoner, unexpectedly sent a message to Earth despite the known existence of the Dark Forest.

While there are many interpretations, no explanation convincingly justifies how an ordinary person acquired the rights to send an interstellar-level message; weren't Trisolarans worried that someone might seize this chance to reveal Trisolaris's coordinates?

The Trisolarans aren't poor strategists, just not foolish. Given their response to disasters, they would likely restrict transmission capabilities of listeners very strictly.

In fact, this may reveal the true state of Trisolaran society: their society is simple and efficient, devoid of unnecessary complexity.

There is a social hierarchy, but there is also immense trust in other individuals, trust so inherent that the word itself is unnecessary. The law is blunt, with only two outcomes: guilty or innocent. The guilty are executed, the innocent set free.

They don't even restrict the ability to emit interstellar-level radio waves; their society has little concept of permissions, and they're quite tolerant of everyone's actions.

In their customs, if you're not supposed to do something, you simply won't, making laws and moral constraints almost unnecessary.

They allow dissenting voices in society and accommodate group differentiation. The law appears more like a judge of thoughts, as there's hardly any crime within the collective society. Those useful to civilization are innocent and allowed differentiation; those detrimental are guilty and executed.

If someone were to reveal the coordinates of Trisolaris, they would meet their death with indifference, the whole society functioning within extreme autocracy and extreme tolerance.

Their ideology is wholly distinct from humans, relying on intense social division of labor to form their societal structures, often lacking strong social constraints on different vocational groups.

This provides the possibility for group differentiation within Trisolaran society; otherwise, it would be incapable of evolutionary development.

P.S.: This chapter is a personal analysis of Trisolaran society, which shouldn't be an absolutely autocratic, collectivized society; they should embody both extreme autocracy and extreme tolerance.

In the author's concept, if diverse thoughts are born within Trisolaran society, they are willing to undergo group differentiation, but before differentiating, they must consider whether the division will benefit the civilization's survival.

If group differentiation leads to the battle for more resources, it's very likely that restrictions will be imposed, potentially resulting in war.

These are the author's personal views, not entirely logically self-consistent, but they can be somewhat justified. Everyone may have their own opinions, so don't take the author's word too seriously. The reason for writing this way was mainly to tell the story of the Trisolarans' Dark Forest Campaign. An absolutely autocratic society wouldn't spawn a Number 1379, nor would it be unchanging, and Trisolarans wouldn't evolve.