Near the beginning of the Crisis Era, while Trisolaris sent sophons to Earth, it also launched six near-lightspeed sophons to scout other parts of the galaxy. Each exploratory sophon soon entered a blind region and lost contact with Trisolaris; the most successful traveled only seven light-years before being cut off.

Later launches produced the same result. The closest known blind region lay about 1.3 light-years from Earth and was the same region encountered by the sophons accompanying Gravity. Once quantum entanglement between sophons broke, communication could not be restored, so any sophon that entered such a region was permanently lost.

Trisolaris could not determine whether the interference was natural or artificial, but scientists from both Trisolaris and Earth increasingly favored an artificial explanation. Before being blinded, the sophons examined only two nearby planetary systems, neither of which showed evidence of life or civilization.

Earth and Trisolaris inferred that those systems were accessible precisely because they were empty. The persistent opacity of the galaxy suggested that something was keeping inhabited or significant regions hidden, strengthening indirect evidence for the dark forest view of the universe.