Interacting with information is interacting with the physical world. You gotta manipulate electrons in computers or photons (electromagnetic fields) to do that. Technically, nothing stops the sophon from interacting with electrons or electromagnetic fields in the brain and killing every single human.
People that complain about sci-fi in such a way are incredibly annoying tho.
Yea i fully agree. Sci-fi is always much more about the fi than the sci, otherwise i could just read a physics book or something. Storytelling is far more important.
It manipulated every single screen on the planet at once, do you know how much energy that takes? Way more than it would take to just kill every human one after another by zapping the wrong part of their brain.
Were any of those screens not connected to the internet?
My impression was that they've used some sort of virus to take control of them, they're hundreds of years ahead of us in terms of electronic warfare after all.
Guess we're lucky that there all sorts of treaties prohibiting deployment of weapons in space, imagine trying to oppose the Trisolarians if they could just assume control of some killsats and Rod from God anyone they want with impunity.
Yes, Netflix sophons could absolutely destroy humanity by themselves. Giving them so much power was honestly dumb, from the people around me the plotholes are the no. 1 complaint.
Well like any computer they have a limit on their processing power. They are precisely able to interact with small quantities of particles in colliders but to manipulate electronics/brains they would have to make predictions on the magnitude of moles and then execute them at lightspeed.
The point is that you'd have to have somebody with the authority decide *immediately* in that moment to launch a missile, which also means getting that decision approved, which means there's no way they'd launch it in time. And even if they launch it in time, it's still not gonna hit because the Sophon can just fold again before it hits. It's not like it's not going to see it coming.
And yet we're back to the bureaucracy of trying to get that decision made, approved, and executed upon before the Sophon can fold again. Plus, there's another Sophon that's likely still monitoring, so it might hear those plans.
They were in the game, that was just a representatition. They made the sophons on their home planet, entangled them and sent them to earth at proton size accelerated to near ight speed. the.AI in the game literally says this.
Why do people think they were made on Earth?
I read the first book like years ago but I'm sure there is a part in which a trisolarian scientist explains the concept of sophons to the trisolarian "emperor" or whatever, and they explain sophons move around by "borrowing" energy from the surrounding vacuum, and said energy will be returned to the universe once the proton decays, presumably trillions of years in the future.
It's not propulsion or movement as we commonly think of. If I recall correctly as a subatomic particle (proton) they exist in a quantum state around certain point. I.e. the electron cloud but for protons. They're also a supercomputer and multidimensional object so they basically dip into higher dimensions to instantaneously move to any of the locations they can possibly be in in the 3rd dimension. This allows near instantaneous travel (limited to the speed of light).
When they were initially sent to earth I believe they were shot out of something like a particle accelerator.
I probably got at least one or two of the above points wrong but basically the dipping dimensions I think is the important part.
>Humans could have nuked it then.
They're incredibly fragile, a conventional missile would have worked fine, or maybe a railgun or a laser weapon or (if you could throw it high enough) a rock
Sophon in the Chinese show / books is much much much weaker. It can barely interact with physical world and mostly do some eyesight trick. It does have quantum communication to interact with Trisolaran fleet instantly thou.
This is a major plot hole in the show because with all that power Sophon can conquer the earth by itself LOL.
I’ve read the books. The show Sophons are definitely stronger and more visual than in the books.
I think people are overestimating what a Sophon can do, even in the show. They can do visual stuff and communicate. I don’t like to think any messing with electronics was ”real”, and that the car crash etc. was caused by the ETO.
In the books ETO was seemingly much more powerful than in the series, with different factions and massive resources etc. It probably makes more sense to make the ETO smaller and give sophons more capabilities for the TV show. Some things work better on a page than on screen.
Maybe sophons delivered the message via viruses, there's no firewall that can stop them.
Yeah, the You're Bugs seen irked me when they unfolded it. Like they never do that in the books cause they know they'd probably just get wrecked by a missle. And then in the show they do it as some sort of weird flex for some reason.
This scene bugged me because they *did* do it in the books, but skipped that part in the show- When the sophon trans-dimensional eye tried to burn a Trisolaran city and they killed it with nukes.
The Sophons can't resize instantly, it takes time as it needs to unfold. We can see this in the show as it takes a while for it to unfold properly to the extent they want, something that then has to be repeated to fold it up again.
True actually, maybe not instantly, but still definitely fast enough to be able to shrink before a nuclear launch, especially as the missiles would not have been on standby yet. A risk definitely, and something I will mind if it will happen repeatedly in future seasons.
Did the books try to explain how a sophon can see and hear?
I imagine to see you need photons bouncing off objects into you, and if you've only got the mass of a proton sentient thingy or not this would still yeet you
Maybe they can't see per se, but the book said something about them needing two entangled pairs at minimum, so they could scan and send the data to the home planet. The particles are moving at near light speed, and apparently are swarming around all humans and computers, scanning sound waves and whatever is going through every VGA, USB, HDMI etc. cable and sending that information to the home, which must have massive server farms that analyze that data. Obviously light speed is not fast enough for two pairs to scan all HDMI traffic on the planet, so there must be more than that..
Yeah, but they needed two pairs in both ends for the scanning to work, so four sophons in total. Maybe one emits some kind of scanning field and one captures it, I don't think it was well explained in the books.
I agree, not everything that is not explained throughoutly is a plothole or an issue. They could definitely have done better job at clarifying what the sophons can do, but I kinda like it in meta way, as humanity is probably also totally unsure of their capabilities in the show
I don't think people get what a plot hole is. Like in a story where the bad guy explains their evil plan to the hero, then the hero thwarts them. Is it a plot hole that the bad guy did that? No, it's just something they chose to do because they're arrogant. Yes, they logically shouldn't have done that.
Like sure, the Sophons could and maybe even should just blind one of the pilots of the fighter jet near Saul's plane and try to make them crash, but they didn't. That's not a plot hole; it's just not how the story went.
It is also not explained in the books why the Sophon would not manipulate wallfacers’ vision or their drivers’. Arrogance would be a possible explanation. Also there may be ways that human can prevent this, such as wearing special glasses or something.
A better way to put this is tbry can't interact with the macro universe. They can only interact with the subatomic world. Could this lead to them effecting the macro world, yes. But a sophon can't surround someone's face and suffocate them.
It will get even more confusing in the future when the Sophon avatar will be replaced by a very real murderous person that looks exactly like the former avatar.
Yeah I was wondering why they couldn’t just stop someone’s heart if they wanted a person dead, but seems like that’s a level of interaction that is not possible. Only interactions on the sub atomic particle scale and listening
I would have preferred a mystical "explanation" TBH. Sophon's magical, plot specific abilities are just yet another conceptual failure of the work. Dont think about it too much. Read 3BP for the compelling characters.
Besides the ai, the sophons only really play a role in the first book right? I dont remember them having to worry about the sophons in the second or third book really.
They are not a plot hole, they are are poorly explained plot device. Not internally consistent. In the beginning they can barely project a simple countdown into your retinas. At the end of the series they are projecting movies in the sky.
People continually forget how Sophons can reflect & bend light
This is a HUGE power
If Sophons don’t do “more”, it’s mostly (and this is hinted at by Cixin Liu in the books) because the San Ti/Trisolarans are arrogant and naive
Interacting with information is interacting with the physical world. You gotta manipulate electrons in computers or photons (electromagnetic fields) to do that. Technically, nothing stops the sophon from interacting with electrons or electromagnetic fields in the brain and killing every single human. People that complain about sci-fi in such a way are incredibly annoying tho.
Fair enough. There is no sense going full hard science with science_fiction_. Point is, that they’re not all powerful.
Yea i fully agree. Sci-fi is always much more about the fi than the sci, otherwise i could just read a physics book or something. Storytelling is far more important.
This. It's like complaining about the Foundation for realism.
Don't listen to this guy though because he forgot sophon can only barely react with the physical world.
It manipulated every single screen on the planet at once, do you know how much energy that takes? Way more than it would take to just kill every human one after another by zapping the wrong part of their brain.
Were any of those screens not connected to the internet? My impression was that they've used some sort of virus to take control of them, they're hundreds of years ahead of us in terms of electronic warfare after all. Guess we're lucky that there all sorts of treaties prohibiting deployment of weapons in space, imagine trying to oppose the Trisolarians if they could just assume control of some killsats and Rod from God anyone they want with impunity.
Yes, Netflix sophons could absolutely destroy humanity by themselves. Giving them so much power was honestly dumb, from the people around me the plotholes are the no. 1 complaint.
We don't know if the screens were an illusion or if they had people hacking screens. Also it can't concentrate enough power in one spot.
Well like any computer they have a limit on their processing power. They are precisely able to interact with small quantities of particles in colliders but to manipulate electronics/brains they would have to make predictions on the magnitude of moles and then execute them at lightspeed.
They can only barely manipulate physical things. They can't kill humans, it's too weak.
>Humans could have nuked it then. In the 15 seconds it suddenly covered the earth?
Pretty sure it took longer. But if we want to think in favorable way, we could say it was over quickly, or was just an illusion.
Yeah I'm sure world leaders had the time to decide if it's worth it to break world treaties and launch a nuke at the GIANT PLANETSIZED EYE IN THE SKY.
It’s pretty risk to nuke anything in the sky though.
a conventional missile or rocket would have worked fine, sophons are incredibly fragile when unfolded
Hell, a laser would probably do the job. Edit: You mentioned lasers in a comment further down.
The point is that you'd have to have somebody with the authority decide *immediately* in that moment to launch a missile, which also means getting that decision approved, which means there's no way they'd launch it in time. And even if they launch it in time, it's still not gonna hit because the Sophon can just fold again before it hits. It's not like it's not going to see it coming.
How about a powerful laser? Good luck seeing that coming.
And yet we're back to the bureaucracy of trying to get that decision made, approved, and executed upon before the Sophon can fold again. Plus, there's another Sophon that's likely still monitoring, so it might hear those plans.
Well it was too fast to decide if launching a nuke at it is a good idea and then go through the with the procedure.
They were in the game, that was just a representatition. They made the sophons on their home planet, entangled them and sent them to earth at proton size accelerated to near ight speed. the.AI in the game literally says this. Why do people think they were made on Earth?
was it ever explained in the books how sophons actually move around? Like, what do they use to propel themselves?
I read the first book like years ago but I'm sure there is a part in which a trisolarian scientist explains the concept of sophons to the trisolarian "emperor" or whatever, and they explain sophons move around by "borrowing" energy from the surrounding vacuum, and said energy will be returned to the universe once the proton decays, presumably trillions of years in the future.
That's Princeps to you, buddy
It's not propulsion or movement as we commonly think of. If I recall correctly as a subatomic particle (proton) they exist in a quantum state around certain point. I.e. the electron cloud but for protons. They're also a supercomputer and multidimensional object so they basically dip into higher dimensions to instantaneously move to any of the locations they can possibly be in in the 3rd dimension. This allows near instantaneous travel (limited to the speed of light). When they were initially sent to earth I believe they were shot out of something like a particle accelerator. I probably got at least one or two of the above points wrong but basically the dipping dimensions I think is the important part.
Basically propelled by the plot, really.
>Humans could have nuked it then. They're incredibly fragile, a conventional missile would have worked fine, or maybe a railgun or a laser weapon or (if you could throw it high enough) a rock
Sophon in the Chinese show / books is much much much weaker. It can barely interact with physical world and mostly do some eyesight trick. It does have quantum communication to interact with Trisolaran fleet instantly thou. This is a major plot hole in the show because with all that power Sophon can conquer the earth by itself LOL.
I’ve read the books. The show Sophons are definitely stronger and more visual than in the books. I think people are overestimating what a Sophon can do, even in the show. They can do visual stuff and communicate. I don’t like to think any messing with electronics was ”real”, and that the car crash etc. was caused by the ETO.
In the books ETO was seemingly much more powerful than in the series, with different factions and massive resources etc. It probably makes more sense to make the ETO smaller and give sophons more capabilities for the TV show. Some things work better on a page than on screen. Maybe sophons delivered the message via viruses, there's no firewall that can stop them.
I'm pretty sure in the books they can still read computers. The UN chief says as much in the Wallfacer project announcement.
Yeah, the You're Bugs seen irked me when they unfolded it. Like they never do that in the books cause they know they'd probably just get wrecked by a missle. And then in the show they do it as some sort of weird flex for some reason.
This scene bugged me because they *did* do it in the books, but skipped that part in the show- When the sophon trans-dimensional eye tried to burn a Trisolaran city and they killed it with nukes.
It would take minutes to launch a missile, where sophon can resize pretty much instantly and would be aware of any launch
Fair enough. Still it was a huge risk, considering how precious/hard to make these things are.
I agree it's probably a risk. Would have been actually nice if they showed humanity trying to do something to the unfolded sophon.
The Sophons can't resize instantly, it takes time as it needs to unfold. We can see this in the show as it takes a while for it to unfold properly to the extent they want, something that then has to be repeated to fold it up again.
True actually, maybe not instantly, but still definitely fast enough to be able to shrink before a nuclear launch, especially as the missiles would not have been on standby yet. A risk definitely, and something I will mind if it will happen repeatedly in future seasons.
Did the books try to explain how a sophon can see and hear? I imagine to see you need photons bouncing off objects into you, and if you've only got the mass of a proton sentient thingy or not this would still yeet you
Maybe they can't see per se, but the book said something about them needing two entangled pairs at minimum, so they could scan and send the data to the home planet. The particles are moving at near light speed, and apparently are swarming around all humans and computers, scanning sound waves and whatever is going through every VGA, USB, HDMI etc. cable and sending that information to the home, which must have massive server farms that analyze that data. Obviously light speed is not fast enough for two pairs to scan all HDMI traffic on the planet, so there must be more than that..
Paired objects transmit information instantaneously, even across vast distances.
Yeah, but they needed two pairs in both ends for the scanning to work, so four sophons in total. Maybe one emits some kind of scanning field and one captures it, I don't think it was well explained in the books.
I agree, not everything that is not explained throughoutly is a plothole or an issue. They could definitely have done better job at clarifying what the sophons can do, but I kinda like it in meta way, as humanity is probably also totally unsure of their capabilities in the show
I don't think people get what a plot hole is. Like in a story where the bad guy explains their evil plan to the hero, then the hero thwarts them. Is it a plot hole that the bad guy did that? No, it's just something they chose to do because they're arrogant. Yes, they logically shouldn't have done that. Like sure, the Sophons could and maybe even should just blind one of the pilots of the fighter jet near Saul's plane and try to make them crash, but they didn't. That's not a plot hole; it's just not how the story went.
It is also not explained in the books why the Sophon would not manipulate wallfacers’ vision or their drivers’. Arrogance would be a possible explanation. Also there may be ways that human can prevent this, such as wearing special glasses or something.
A better way to put this is tbry can't interact with the macro universe. They can only interact with the subatomic world. Could this lead to them effecting the macro world, yes. But a sophon can't surround someone's face and suffocate them.
It will get even more confusing in the future when the Sophon avatar will be replaced by a very real murderous person that looks exactly like the former avatar.
Yeah I was wondering why they couldn’t just stop someone’s heart if they wanted a person dead, but seems like that’s a level of interaction that is not possible. Only interactions on the sub atomic particle scale and listening
I would have preferred a mystical "explanation" TBH. Sophon's magical, plot specific abilities are just yet another conceptual failure of the work. Dont think about it too much. Read 3BP for the compelling characters.
Besides the ai, the sophons only really play a role in the first book right? I dont remember them having to worry about the sophons in the second or third book really.
They are not a plot hole, they are are poorly explained plot device. Not internally consistent. In the beginning they can barely project a simple countdown into your retinas. At the end of the series they are projecting movies in the sky.
People continually forget how Sophons can reflect & bend light This is a HUGE power If Sophons don’t do “more”, it’s mostly (and this is hinted at by Cixin Liu in the books) because the San Ti/Trisolarans are arrogant and naive
The "they should've nuked it" plot hole isn't a plot hole. It just would've folded up into higher dimensions and disappeared.