北雁云依

A title inspired by Lu Xun's "On the Style and Relationship between Wei and Jin Dynasties, Articles, Medicine, and Alcohol".

I used to think that Liu Cixin's writing process was a process of his brain deteriorating—from "China 2185" to "Ball Lightning" to "Remembrance of Earth's Past" ("The Three-Body Problem," "The Dark Forest," and "Death's End"), it presented a process of becoming increasingly reactionary, misogynistic, and leaning towards authoritarianism. "Death's End" is the culmination of this process. However, when I carefully pondered "Death's End" in my mind, I found that even though it is the most conservative (reactionary) in terms of values among these novels, it still has extremely anti-establishment metaphors and even prophecies: the era of deterrence.

The era of deterrence is nominally a "peaceful and prosperous era" in a highly developed society—after the normalization and establishment of diplomatic relations between Earth and Trisolaris, the two worlds have engaged in close cooperation. In addition to the legacy of the crisis era, the human race on Earth has also undertaken the technological input and industrial transfer from the Trisolaran world, experiencing unprecedented development. However, this world is clearly a dystopian world!

Where is the specific dystopia? Let's start with the political structure of the era of deterrence: there is nominally a democratic government, with a parliament and regular elections (representative system), but the ultimate power in both worlds is actually concentrated in a "Swordholder" named Luo Ji, who has an unlimited term and is in his seventies or eighties. Luo Ji holds the switch of deterrence and can destroy both worlds as long as he is in a bad mood, so both worlds can only obey Luo Ji's orders. As a result, Luo Ji has become the greatest dictator in the history of both worlds¹, and all creatures in these two worlds can only bow down to him. Imagine, if one of Luo Ji's organs fails, both the Trisolaran government and the Earth government would have to quickly transplant an organ obtained from who knows where. (No wonder Luo Ji, over a hundred years old, was still full of energy when he transferred power to Cheng Xin!)

Now let's take a look at the high-pressure rule of the era of deterrence over the people: when Thomas Wade assassinated Cheng Xin, he used a gun from the AD era instead of a modern gun, and the reason was revealed by Wade himself: modern guns leave records in the public security system every time they are used. The human government has also utilized the technological input from the Trisolaran world (sophons) to carry out a series of projects such as "Safe City," "Sky Net Project," and "Bright Project," with everyone's every move under the strong surveillance of the human government. Under such surveillance, the solar system has become the safest planetary system in the universe, to the extent that the long-standing public security system couldn't even guess Wade's intentions when he used the AA voice to commit telecommunications fraud against Cheng Xin. Even so, Wade's assassination failed due to the efficient public security system.

Under this kind of terrifying rule, after years of "natural selection," the males in the era of deterrence have completely lost their masculinity and become a group of "effeminate men," even "classical beauties from the AD era¹" like Cheng Xin find them "very pretty." A powerful Leviathan can only produce obedient sheep: after the failure of deterrence, sophons armed with samurai swords rushed into the crowd and killed indiscriminately, invincible. Sophons are just robots made with human technology, not tanks, without armor. Yet, a lone sophon achieved a "record-breaking hundred-man beheading," as it is said that "the gun is fast beyond ten steps, and within ten steps, the gun is both fast and accurate," but humans didn't fire a single shot throughout the entire process, showing how feeble people become after long-term rule by a dictatorship².

Unfortunately, the young readers only read "humans don't appreciate Luo Ji" from the plot, which is truly regrettable. A work can express many meanings, but fascist authorities only allow the recipients to see what they want them to see. If this biased reading is the greatest insult to the work, then Liu Cixin, as the author, has even demeaned himself by actively catering to the propaganda of the fascist authorities. He was originally someone who dared to design an elected government for China in "China 2185," dared to write in the afterword of "The Supernova Era" that "science fiction is the only true literature," and dared to say that the inspiration for "The Supernova Era" came from a dream he had on the night of June 3, 1989. In recent years, he has fallen to the point of firing "The Three-Body Problem Trilogy" as a science fiction work in interviews, and promoting fascist authorities and totalitarianism in promotional materials. Perhaps Liu Cixin himself is also one of the "effeminate men" tamed by the "era of deterrence" that he depicts.

In order to enhance the allusion to the fascist authorities, this article has made some additions and changes to the original plot of "Death's End," but it is still based on the original plot.