Aliens, cross-galactic conspiracies, evil cults and high-tech virtual realtiy headsets: the world of The Three-Body Problem – the book which has been adapted into glossy new Netflix show 3 Body Problem – can seem intimidating for the uninitiated.
Originally written by Chinese author Cixin Liu and published in 2008 (the English translation came later, in 2014), the big budget sci-fi show lands on the streamer in March starring Benedict Wong, Liam Cunningham and John Bradley.
It has a difficult job on its hands. The source material is infamously knotty, featuring complicated theoretical physics (like the three-body problem of the title, in fact) and multiple timelines, which can make reading it a bit of a slog and hard to understand for anyone barring a cosmologist.
Not to worry: here we unpack the story, its themes, and what looks set to make it into the series. Spoilers ahead, so tread with caution.
Where’s it set?
The Three-Body Problem novel is set across two timelines, and the first is in China during the Cultural Revolution. Launched by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong in 1966, during this 10-year period Community Party members hunted anybody harbouring Western or capitalist ideals, either imprisoning them or sentencing them to work in labour camps in the deep countryside.
Many died (the estimates vary from hundreds of thousands to millions) – and that is reflected in the book. At the start, leading character Ye Wnjie watches helplessly as her university professor father is beaten to death in front of a baying crowd.
Sentenced to a labour camp herself, Ye Wenjie is ultimately recruited by a top-secret military facility where her research has an impact in the present-day timeline.
This timeline follows Wang Miao, a nanotechnology professor in modern-day China who suddenly finds himself at the centre of a global nightmare when the world’s top physicists start taking their own lives.
What happens in the book?
In short, a lot. After Ye Wenjie is taken to the remote military base, she finds out that its top-secret mission is to make contact with aliens. Thanks to some physics jiggery pokery, she manages to send a message to an alien from the far-away planet Trisolaris, who tells her that he is a pacifist – but his race is not. He warns her to stop communicating with them, in case his comrades see her messages and decide to invade Earth.
Undeterred, Ye Wenjie tells them to come anyway: after her experiences with the Cultural Revolution, she believes that humans are incapable of making the world a better place by themselves. Aided by an American called Mike Evans, she sets up the Earth-Trisolaris Organisation: essentially, it’s a doomsday cult, designed to prepare humanity for the eventual alien invasion (450 years down the line, which is how long it’s going to take them to travel to Earth from their corner of the universe).
In the present day, Wang Miao starts experiencing hallucinations: a countdown, ticking down to some unspecified moment. Alarmed and confused, he is approached by detective Shi Qiang, who asks him to help solve the mysterious suicides taking place around the world, of which Wang could be one if the countdown runs out.
As Wang starts to dig into the mystery, he discovers the existence of the Three Body game – a VR experience that transports users to a mysterious planet, whose weather flips between ‘Chaotic Eras’ (where intense cold or heat kills everything and everyone) and ‘Stable Eras’ (where the climate at least allows habitation).
Wang discovers that the purpose of the game is to predict these ‘chaotic’ eras in order to save the inhabitants of that planet from being wiped out by repeated cataclysms. Eventually, he realises that the game itself mimics the real-life conditions faced by the Trisolarans on their home planet, which is ruled by the three-body problem.
Forever at risk of being wiped out by chaotic eras, they ultimately had to flee their planet for a new, safer home: hence their looming invasion of Earth.
This kicks off a full-scale battle between governments around the world and the cultists attempting to sabotage the Earth’s defenses against said invasion – a battle which, by the end of the first novel, is far from over.
What is the three-body problem?
The three-body problem is a physics term that describes the motion of a particle, or smaller ‘body’ such as a planet, when affected by the gravitational forces of two larger bodies – such as stars.
While the movement of a planet is stable when it’s orbiting one star, when two are introduced, the competing gravitational fields cause its movement to become unpredictable and chaotic.
Fascinatingly, there is no solution to this problem: the movement of the smaller body cannot be predicted by modern mathematics.
How much of that makes it into the series?
The series has taken some liberties with the source text – notably moving the present-day action from China to London.
In this version of events, the main character of Wang Miao is replaced by a group of superstar scientists: Jack (John Bradley), Auggie (Eiza González), Jin (Jess Hong), Will (Alex Sharp) and Saul (Jovan Adepo).
Wang’s role in discovering the true origins of the Three Body game and the Trisolaran invasion is instead divided between nanotechnology scientist Auggie, and Jin, who stumbles across the VR game after a meeting with an older Ye Wenjie.
Jin rapidly becomes obsessed with solving the problem of the planet’s climate – and then sets out to discover who’s behind the game.
What’s in the book’s sequels?
Originally conceived as a trilogy, Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem series (which comprises the first book and sequels The Dark Forest and Death’s End) addresses the looming Trisolaran invasion of Earth, and Earth’s attempts to prepare for that invasion.
Notably, that includes wrestling with sophons – super-smart subatomic machines sent by the Trisolaran fleet which can communicate with them in real-time, thanks to quantum entanglement (too complicated to explain here) – and the cultists on Earth, who are sabotaging the Earth’s defences to try and facilitate the invasion.
Liu also explores the ‘dark forest hypothesis’ (the idea that numerous alien civilisations exist in the universe, but that they are either silent or hostile), and the Fermi Paradox: basically, the discrepancy between the likelihood of alien life existing in the universe, and the lack of evidence confirming said alien life.
Yes, it gets complicated – but that’s a (three body) problem for future series of the show to unpick.
