Remembrance of Earth's Past, #3
Death's End
by Cixin Liu
Contents
Crisis Era, Year 1 The Option for Life
Overview
Yang Dong, already shattered by the collapse of physics, reveals that she has uncovered Ye Wenjie’s secret connection to Trisolaris. A chance conversation with a young researcher about an Earth simulation shows her that life can transform an entire planet over geological time.
The idea becomes terrifying when Yang Dong applies it to a crowded universe: if life is widespread, then the universe itself may have been altered by life. This pushes her deeper into despair and frames her crisis as both personal and cosmic.
Summary
In Crisis Era Year 1, Yang Dong stands above a stopped particle accelerator and contemplates suicide. The failed collider symbolizes the collapse of her faith in physics: the microscopic and cosmic realities she once believed were harmonious now seem chaotic and terrifying.
Yang Dong also thinks about her mother, Ye Wenjie. After recovering deleted encrypted documents from Ye Wenjie’s computer, Yang Dong has learned about Trisolaris and her mother’s secret connection to the extraterrestrials. Unable to confront Ye Wenjie, Yang Dong tries to preserve the image of the mother she once knew, but between the “end of physics” and Ye Wenjie’s secret, Yang Dong feels she has lost any life she could live.
Yang Dong pulls back from the balcony and enters the terminal room, where the collider’s supercomputer is now being used for another project. A young man with green-framed glasses explains that the terminals are running a large mathematical model of Earth’s surface, combining many sciences to simulate planetary evolution.
Feeling briefly comforted by the model’s vivid images of nature, Yang Dong asks Green Glasses whether he believes in God. Yang Dong argues that life seems possible only because physical conditions are extraordinarily precise, but Green Glasses counters that life itself reshaped Earth. To demonstrate, Green Glasses runs a coarse simulation with the “life” option removed.
The simulation shows an Earth without oceans or rivers, a dry orange world. Green Glasses explains that life altered Earth’s atmosphere and surface over billions of years, making the present planet a home built by life rather than by divine design. Yang Dong then asks what would happen if life were removed from a simulation of the universe, and Green Glasses says the universe would look the same because life is too rare to matter.
Yang Dong knows from Ye Wenjie’s secret documents that life is not rare but widespread. Looking at the night sky, Yang Dong wonders how much life has changed the universe and is overcome by terror. She realizes she can no longer save herself and is haunted by the question of whether nature is truly natural.
Who Appears
- Yang DongPhysicist in despair; discovers Ye Wenjie’s secret and fears life has altered the universe.
- Green GlassesYoung researcher running an Earth simulation; explains how life reshaped the planet.
- Ye WenjieYang Dong’s mother; her hidden Trisolaran communications shatter Yang Dong’s trust.