The Three-Body Problem

Content Warning: This section depicts death by suicide.

Ye and Evans didn’t speak for several years. Ye was invited to “the Second Red Coast Base” (341), which was actually a ship in the Atlantic Ocean with a “huge parabolic antenna” (342). The ship was bought and outfitted by Evans, who explained that he has used the antenna to make further contact with the Trisolarans. Their fleet has already set off for Earth, he said, and is set to arrive in almost 450 years’ time. The boat is part of Evans’ new organization, the ETO. He invited Ye to take over as the organization’s commander, thus officially beginning the Earth-Trisolaris Movement’s campaign to “end human tyranny” (343).

The ETO consisted of intellectuals and scientists, mainly from the “highly educated classes” (344). Despite the lingering hesitancy toward their families, the members agreed that the human race needed outside interference and potentially even destruction. Given the prevailing sense of alienation in the world, the ETO grew quickly and “semi-openly.” Most governments dismissed it as a ridiculous fringe movement and did nothing to intervene in its growth. Within the ETO, two factions emerged. The Adventists loathed humanity so much that they wanted the entire species wiped out.