Chapter 305: The Crimes of the Trisolarans

Mozi insisted, "We cannot subjectively determine the crimes of the Trisolarans, but should adhere to the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.

"I do not deny the Trisolarans' aggressive acts, but perhaps we understand too little about them. The true situation may differ significantly from our current understanding.

"What we need is to cast aside subjective prejudices as much as possible, we cannot simply rely on emotional reactions or one-sided information to convict the Trisolarans.

"All actions of the Trisolarans in the war are based on their unique world view, strategic planning, and military theory.

"The war between Trisolarans and humanity is complex; there is no division of evil and justice, only the collision and interweaving of different stands and interests.

"We cannot simply impose our legal standards on them; the actions of the Trisolarans in the war have not clearly violated the current international laws of war."

The prosecutor stared at Mozi, somewhat angrily, "You speak lightly of not violating the regulations of war.

"You keep claiming we should not judge subjectively, yet your argument is filled with subjective speculation.

"You ask us to understand them, yet you deliberately overlook the great harm they have brought to humanity.

"You claim to be just, yet you lack the most basic standards of right and wrong. You may think you are defending some kind of ideology, but by discarding the measure of morality, your actions have already deviated from the path of justice."

After calming down a bit, the prosecutor continued, "Although international law does not clearly stipulate whether the presumption of innocence applies in this situation, out of respect for the law and firm pursuit of justice, we have still decided to adopt this principle in this trial.

"From the information about Trisolaris that we have at hand, the battle plans made by the Trisolaran world for its warships only clearly defined specific targets and time windows for attack.

"This means that each warship on the battlefield has a considerable degree of autonomous decision-making power.

"In the course of the war, their warships would form small-scale combined units based on real-time conditions. These units can be regarded as independent decision-making and combat unit systems. They can directly receive battlefield information in real time through Sophons and quickly adjust their attack strategies accordingly.

"Unlike humanity's military forces, which employ a vertical model highly dependent on central command, the Trisolarans adopted a more dispersed, decentralized combat approach.

"In their system, central command only takes responsibility for issuing overall mission objectives and strategic intentions, while the specific execution strategies and methods are entirely left to these distributed systems to make autonomous decisions based on real-time battlefield conditions.

"This unique method of combat may stem from the Trisolarans' unique mode of existence and their social structure.

"Such a distributed method of combat ensures that they can respond quickly and flexibly to a variety of emergency situations without relying on direct control and command from the center."

Trisolarans live in underground caves, so central command is not possible during combat.

Distributed combat has another advantage; each combat unit is an independent combat system. If defeated, these individual combat units may still have a chance of survival, which is also a way of risk diversification.

Trisolaran thought patterns are more akin to computer models where distributed is the most efficient and resource-saving method, greatly eliminating single points of failure and thus increasing survival rates. This is also an inevitable choice for Trisolarans.

The prosecutor continued, "Next, I will present the most crucial evidence we have obtained to everyone.

"The explicit orders given by the Trisolaran world to all its warships were to attack 12 specified targets on Earth.

"However, the fact is that Earth suffered a devastating blow from 39 Sophon Field strikes, far beyond expectations.

"It was these additional 27 strikes that brought irreparable harm to Earth and led to one of the most painful tragedies in human history, with nearly a hundred million people perishing in this catastrophe.

"According to the comprehensive assessment by the Science Advisory Board, if Earth had only suffered the 12 attacks originally planned by the Trisolarans, although such a strike would still cause permanent damage to Earth's environment, the number of human casualties would have been greatly reduced, it is estimated that the death toll would not exceed ten million.

"These 12 attacks were all crucial areas of 'deterrence' for humanity. After the Battle of Doom, humanity understood the risks in this region, which was actually uninhabited by humans, so the losses would have been minimal.

"Therefore, from a behavioral perspective, the actions of the Trisolarans undoubtedly constituted war crimes.

"In their value system, this kind of indiscriminate attack is seen as justified. They believe that to ensure failure is not an option, eliminating all potential threats with extreme measures is necessary.

"However, while we may not have relevant laws, this cannot be an excuse for them to evade accountability. We must face this severe reality and realize how cruel and unforgivable the crimes they have committed are.

"We cannot use cultural differences or different values as an excuse to overlook or downplay their criminal acts. It is precisely their subjectively displayed indifference and cruelty that further highlight the severity of the war crimes they have committed.

"This is a trampling on civilization, a disregard for the dignity of life, they are guilty of crimes against civilization.

"Perhaps in the eyes of the Trisolarans we were just insects, but the humanity of today is not the same, and they also need to be held accountable for their actions." Lin Sen said.

The unscrupulous behavior of the Trisolarans in pursuit of their goals had sparked intense anger and resentment across all of humanity.

Having learned these truths, the public generally believed that the punishments proposed by the prosecution were too lenient; some even insisted that for such grave crimes, the harshest punishments, including the death penalty, should be applied.

The trial of Trisolaran prisoners by humanity was not out of victorious arrogance or prejudice, but rather was based on ample and indisputable evidence. In the face of such evidence, any defense of the Trisolarans seemed empty and powerless.

In human warfare, the essence of war crimes is the violation of respect for human rights and dignity, a respect that does not change regardless of the enemy's identity or background.

Even though humanity and the Trisolarans are not the same civilization, we should still adhere to the principle of "do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you."

This, perhaps, is the most fundamental difference between humanity and the Trisolarans.

Humans might feel pity for cattle and sheep, but they have no sense of guilt when consuming their meat because we do not regard them as lives equal to our own.

Before the battle at the end of days, the Trisolarans perhaps did not regard humans as lives equal to theirs either.

But now humanity has fought for an equal status with the Trisolarans, and therefore, we should also enjoy the same human rights, which is the most basic moral demand between two civilizations.

Since the Trisolarans were defeated in the war, they must assume corresponding responsibilities. This line of reasoning is logically rigorous and reasonable, with almost no loopholes.

PS: In previous chapters, some readers believed that since Lin Sen had sent Sophons to Trisolaran world, he must have known about the Sophon Field and their plans to attack Earth, hence Earth was deliberately sacrificed by Lin Sen.

However, this is not the case. Lin Sen was cruel but not to such an extent.

As stated in previous chapters, the Wallfacer Project only estimated the number of Trisolaran warships; they did not know the exact figures, and the surveillance by human Sophons of the Trisolaran world was very limited.

Lin Sen even hesitated to let Sophons enter the Trisolaran Star System too early. It was only in recent years, when the Trisolarans devoted all their efforts to the Solar System, that Lin Sen allowed Sophons to enter the Trisolaran Star System. Even upon arrival, they did not dare to explore recklessly, as Sophons could detect each other when too close.

Directly stealing the Trisolaran battle plans was very likely to be detected by Trisolaran Sophons; at most, they could only gather some information on the periphery.

The surveillance by human Sophons had to be extremely cautious, and it was only after the outcome of the war had been determined that they dared to directly enter the Council of Regents.

On the other hand, this chapter also explained that the Trisolarans' way of combat is a decentralized, distributed war. Their strategic plans are not something humanity could easily steal.

Before the war, Lin Sen could at most speculate that Earth would be subject to attack, but he had no idea of the scale. He would know this without the Sophons monitoring Trisolaris; it's unrelated to whether Sophons were keeping an eye on it or not.

Perhaps some might ask, if Lin Sen had abandoned the Battle of Dust and simply announced that humanity now had Sophons, couldn't Earth have avoided being attacked?

Indeed, this would most likely deter the Trisolarans from attacking the Solar System too rashly. But what's the point of that?

If the Trisolarans continued to wait until the number of warships reaching the Solar System increased to 2000 or 3000, what could humanity use to resist them?

To someone like Lin Sen in high office, life perhaps was just a number.

The war against the Trisolarans was intentionally instigated by Lin Sen; it was initiated using the war between Natural Persons and Long-Livers, and the casualties here were also countless.

Lin Sen indeed was cruel, but when it came to the life and death of humanity, there was no room for concern.

You might feel that humanity won the Dusty War easily and think that humanity already had the capacity to fully contend with Trisolaran Civilization.

In reality, victory in this war was not easy; it was a balance hanging by a thread, and the key lay in whether the information from the Sophon was known to the Trisolarans. Once leaked, using the most conservative approach, humanity was almost doomed to fail against Trisolaran Civilization.

The Dark Forest could only provide humanity with the lowest level of protection; it was a shield but also a cage. If one cannot break free from oneself, they would be surely trapped in this cage.

Therefore, it was necessary to keep Sophons as the last resort until the situation in the war had become clear.

Under such circumstances, the sacrifice of Earth was unavoidable unless the "Deterrence" was never placed on Earth from the start.

The author set it up so that humans did not want to live on Earth, thus Earth's population was only one hundred million. If "Deterrence" was placed in space, do readers think that human governments would place it in a space city with hundreds of millions of people and heavily guarded, or in a remote and rarely visited location?