68 pages 2 hours read

Liu Cixin, Transl. Ken Liu

The Three-Body Problem

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006

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Part 3, Chapters 21-27

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “Sunset for Humanity”

Part 3, Chapter 21 Summary: “Rebels of Earth”

Attending the next meeting of the Three Body game players are approximately 300 people, including “celebrities and elites of various fields” (269). They meet in a former chemical factory, now abandoned. Three metal spheres are placed in the middle of the room, replicating the three-body problem. Pan Han stands on a table, hosting the meeting. He admits to killing Shen Yufei, whom he accuses of being a traitor. People are upset. They accuse Pan of corruption; though he was tasked with using the group’s Environmental Branch to manufacture ecological disasters (with the aim of making humanity hate itself), he simply used the group to “gain riches.” The attendees argue over their next steps. They schism along different lines, with people like Pan calling for worldwide revolution in which the group would reveal itself to the rest of society. The meeting is disrupted by the arrival of Ye Wenjie, who is revealed as the commander of the ETO.

Ye delivers a speech about the need to end “human tyranny.” The crowd responds to her by calling out in unison that the world belongs to Trisolaris. Ye questions Pan, accusing him of breaking the group’s rules.

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