This is the final part of my Three Body Problem review, June 2024. Don’t forget, whoever you vote for, the government always gets in.

Our own Three Body Problem

Kindly allow me to finish by running with my astro-political metaphor.

As the US, the great star of the geopolitical firmament, declines and recedes, it disrupts the cosmic equilibrium of the post-war liberal order in the West. (Not so much equilibrium for the colonialised regions, unfortunately.) The US enters its supernova phase.  

During the final period of stability, China saves the global economy from the declining America’s Great Financial Crash of 2008, releasing the big star’s last burst of energy which it proceeds to burn up at speed in a last ditch attempt to maintain its brilliance.

Meanwhile, Europe is drawing towards China under its huge gravitational pull of 1.4b human beings, vast productive economies of scale and rapidly advancing technology.

Lighter elements in the US whose outgoing energy counters the star’s own gravity, begin to burn out and fuse to create heavier elements. These deep state elements need to either drag Europe back or nix it all together. 

They resort to all sorts of dirty tricks to promote Brexit, taking a huge chunk out of Europe as the UK jumps out of the Europe frying pan and into the US fire, adding its small mass to America. The additional gravitational attraction is just enough to pull Europe from its natural flow towards China and jerk it back towards the US, where the American red sun expansion fries parts of it to a crisp. 

Burning through the last of its hydrogen and helium, the oversized star rapidly fuses into heavier and heavier elements — as Brexit shock leads to Trump leads to Biden in ever deteriorating states until its outgoing energy can no longer counter its own gravity.

It falls in on itself and bounces back off the tiny metallic core in a cosmic supernova, collapsing and exploding at the same time. Nothing is left except a tiny dwarf remnant of social breakdown, civil war, debt, hate and death spinning in the black depths of space.

Now, this is the plot we actually find ourselves in. I wonder if Cixin Liu ever stands at the lip of his Red Coast Base clifftop, staring into the setting sun, and asks if the sunset for humanity isn’t already here.