1/ MYTHOLOGIES. Chinese astrophysicist Ye Wenjie, a victim of the cultural revolution, is assigned to a remote scientific base, where messages are sent to possible extraterrestrial intelligences. She manages to multiply her reach. And one day she receives an answer. She is about a pacifist alien who claims to belong to a violent civilization; That’s why she implores them not to respond. But Ye Wenjie, bitterly resentful of her family’s fall from grace, her banishment, and the hatred that festers from Maoism, responds. And she assumes all the consequences of it.
This is how the first and best episode of The Three-Body Problem ends, which begins with the public ridicule of the father, who is also a scientist. And his death, which is worthy of Game of Thrones, the work that he dedicated to David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Now they have undertaken the adaptation of another iconic novel, the trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past (Nova), by Liu Cixin, one of the most important science fiction authors of today.
Ye Wenjie’s tragic gesture generates modern and ancient echoes. In the area of ??seriality, it leads us to two other figures from great titles of speculative fiction: Gaius Baltar, who betrays humanity and allows the genocide perpetrated by the Cylons in Galactica. Battle star; and Dr. Walter Bishop, from Fringe, who by stealing the son of the version of him in a parallel universe causes an interdimensional breach and a war between both worlds. Baltar was Count Gaius Baltar in the original 1978 version: as Count Don Julian, who according to legend opened the doors of the Iberian Peninsula to Islam. In the 21st century version, however, he is Dr. Baltar.
The protagonists of The Three-Body Problem are also all scientists. The hubris of science causes the cosmic imbalance that science has to balance again. But not only through knowledge and intellect, but above all thanks to emotion. Friendship, loyalty, love, works of emotional science fiction tell us, are the engines of a reality that is only apparently dominated by quantum physics and futuristic technologies.
2/ TECHNO-SCIENTISM. From CERN particle accelerators to innovation startups in nanomaterials, through space science or the design of immersive experiences, the series draws a very complete panorama of the techno-scientific avant-garde of our time. Two ideas stand out in his theoretical arsenal: extraterrestrial communication and the possibility of redefining what we understand by being human.
As the San-ti invasion fleet heads towards Earth, communication channels between the aliens and humans continue to multiply. The leader of the sect that worships them speaks with The Lord through a microphone and a speaker from another time (and in the best dialogue of the first season, he understands that the San-ti are incapable of understanding fiction, that for them It’s a simple lie). In addition to hacking global communications to call us insects, they distribute a video game that explains what it is like to live on a planet with prolonged periods of climate crisis, followed by others of relative stability. In the absence of physical bodies – as there is in Arrival (based on The Story of Your Life, by Ted Chang) –, communication occurs through radio telescopes, audio and virtuality.
The protagonists, on the other hand, have a classic, very physical relationship with each other: hugs, beers, care. One of them suffers from a serious illness. And he volunteers for an experiment: his brain is frozen and sent on a space probe. Is he still a person? Perhaps because the original novels are from 2006, the solution to the greatest challenge in the history of humanity cannot be found by artificial intelligence. It all depends on our natural intelligence. And we sense that this brain, that physical presence, may be capable of communicating what waves and virtual images cannot yet say.
3/NETFLIX. The strangers will arrive in four hundred years. The UN champions the unanimous response of the Earth. But the hard core of the characters comes from Great Britain: the five from Oxford, in the heart of the Old Continent. In the novels the protagonists are Chinese. This displacement is problematic and anachronistic. As in Game of Thrones, those who save us have British accents. The secret agent trying to find out what’s going on is Asian, but from Manchester. China causes the problem but does not intervene in the solution.
At the beginning of last year, Tencent Video successfully premiered its own version of The Three Body Problem, much more literal than Netflix’s. The American platform cannot be seen in China; but his version of the story has nevertheless been widely viewed via VPN or piracy. And highly criticized. His geopolitical vision does not assume the prominence of the Asian giant, perhaps because it was considered that it would not be part of his audience.
Like the San-ti, algorithms try to communicate with us through difficult channels. And they end up being self-referential. Netflix series talk about everything about Netflix. How to persist in your invasion.
